Last Winter

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• British 36th Infantry Division takes Mongmit, Burma.

 

• Fighting continues in Mandalay with the available Allied medium artillery unable to breach the walls of Fort Dufferin.

 

Troops of the 19th Indian Division on Pagoda Hill, Mandalay, 10 March, 1945

 

• 95% of Mindanao has been liberated by 36,000 Filipino guerillas, coordinated by Captain Wendell Fertig of the Army Corps of Engineers, who has been there since refusing to surrender in 1942.

 

Wendell Fertig during the occupation.

 

- General MacArthur dislikes Fertig and strongly disapproves of Fertig referring to himself as “Brigadier General” in order to increase his authority with the resistance. An intercepted Japanese message referring to Fertig as the American commander in chief in the Philippines only makes his dislike stronger. He is determined to have the liberation of Mindanao be due to SWPA. He therefore orders US Eighth Army to liberate the remaining 5% of the island. Today, two regiments of the 41st Infantry Division land near Zamboanga, supported by naval gunfire and Marine Corps aircraft. Japanese shore batteries sink LST-591, LST-626, LCI-710 and LCI-779. Attacking troops encounter only light mortar fire as the battery personnel fall back to Zamboanga.

 

- Fertig sends word that his guerillas have captured the Japanese airfield at Dipolog, and General Eichelberger will quickly fly in two companies of the 24th Infantry Division, while the Marine Air Group will relocate from Palawan.

 

- Fertig and the Filipino partisans will be marginalized in the official reports and MacArthur will refuse to endorse a recommendation that Fertig receive the Medal of Honor.

 

- The Colorado mining engineer was able to negotiate alliance between rival Catholic and Muslim partisan groups. Fertig recruited and trained a force that included an engineer corps, a commando school, and a makeshift navy. He installed a civilian government, drafted labor, and built a communications network. More than 7,000 Japanese have been killed on Mindanao by the insurgents during the occupation and several special hunts and airstrikes were mounted by the Japanese in attempts to kill him and decapitate the insurgency.

 

Wendell Fertig as a Colonel post-war.

 

LCM landing American troops in partisan controlled area of Mindanao

 

Filipino partisan LT Jumah greets LT William Pondle of 41st Div on Mindanao"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• A PBM Mariner attacks a Japanese convoy in the South China Sea, sinking 2,700 ton water tanker Wayo Maru about 40 miles southeast of Macao.

 

• American and Filipino troops take Zamboanga City on Mindanao and push toward Pasananca.

 

• 285 American B-29 bombers attack Nagoya with incendiary bombs.

 

• The IJN launches Operation Tan No.2, with the dispatch of twenty-four P1Y Ginga twin-engine bombers on a 1,600 mile one way flight from Kanoya, Japan, to the US Fleet anchorage at Ulithi. Each one is carrying two 500 kg bombs and one torpedo. They are to crash into large carriers as their primary targets. Naval Lt-General Matome Ugaki tells the pilots of the Azusa Special Attack Unit that being chosen for the mission is a great honor.

 

- Five Kawanishi H8K flying boats accompany the flight most of the way, providing weather reconnaissance and navigational support. Submarine I-58 is stationed off Okino-Torishima broadcasting as a navigational radio beacon for the bombers.

 

- Eleven of the “Frances” abort due to engine troubles, returning to Japan or landing on Minami-Daito Jima (which has no fuel, stranding them). Five Gingas are known to have ditched as sea, while six P1Ys and one H8K simply vanish.

 

- The two remaining P1Ys arrive at Ulithi during evening twilight and surprise the Americans. They find the islands and ships lit, and dive to high speed approaching their targets at low altitude.

 

- One mistakes the islet of Mogmog for a ship and plows into its lit baseball diamond. The other slams into fleet carrier Randolph’s starboard quarter. It has so little fuel in its tanks that it doesn’t start a fire despite its bombs and torpedo exploding. 26 crewmen are killed and 105 wounded, and several aircraft are destroyed, but Randolph will be repaired at Ulithi and back in action in April.

 

USS Randolph aft flight deck the day after the raid"

[Heliopause]

In relation to the fighting in the area of Mandaly:

 

HMS Emperor with Sqn 800 FAA has joined the Indian Ocean Fleet. A number of Dutch pilots are still with the Squadron (having flown in operation Dragoon and over Greece). Poublon and Saltykoff have volunteered for duty in Burma, joining Sqn 60 RAF flying Hurricanes.
Poublon noted around this time:
March 1st: Bombing and strafing Kyantan
March 2nd: Bombing and strafing Jap dug-outs
March 3rd: Bombing and strafing Okpo (2 missions)
March 5th: Bombing and strafing south of Meiktila
March 5th: Bombing and strafing of Jewe - Jap dug-outs
March 6th: Bombing and strafing town of Kume
March 6th: Bombing and strafing Jap in Pagodes at Singu
March 6th: Bombing and strafing bunker positions
March 8th: Bombing and strafing of Singu
March 8th: Bombing and strafing of Yindaw south of Meiktila
March 9th: Bombing and strafing of Kume
March 9th: Bombing and strafing Singu

 

Poublon (in an article) also mentioned the strip Monewa: "There was never a front line in Burma. A Gurkha patrol would move into the jungle and capture and secure an airstrip to have aircraft move in. Technical personnel was flown in by Dakota and the rest was dropped by parachute. There was only one tent and half of it was used as mess, the other half as a sickbay. We slept outside. In a tree was safer as the enemy sometimes rolled a hand grenade over the ground. Because of the heat we only wore a short. To hinder us the Japanese started to dig trenches across the runway. We then took bombs that we dropped in the trenches during take off. However they kept digging trenches as to the point we could not take off anymore. The machines where then tied to a tree with ropes. The whole day we sat in the cockpit. As soon as you saw something move you fired your four 20 mm canons. Finally we where saved by Gurkhas who delt quickly with our attackers".

 

On April 10th a message from HMS Emperor is received with the order to return and re-join Sqn 800.

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Zhukov’s troops take Küstrin, Germany amid street fighting and destruction of the citadel by dive-bombers, artillery and assault teams armed with mortars and flame-throwers. The entire Soviet front has now reached the Oder-Neisse line as far south as Görlitz, excepting a small pocket near Stettin.

 

Soviet sapper using a VIM-203 mine detector.

 

• German 2. Panzer Armee becomes embroiled in heavy fighting in three villages along the Dráva River south of Pécs, Hungary. Over the next five days the Soviet 84th Rifle Division and Bulgarian 16th Infantry Divison thwart all attempts by the Germans to break through and cross the river.

 

• Near Valpovo, Croatia, the German 11. Luftwaffen Feld Division, supported by two SS regiments of dismounted Cossacks, crosses the Dráva and pushes about two kilometers to the northeast. Within a week the Yugoslav XII Partisan Corps will push the Axis troops back across the river.

 

• Soviet naval aircraft attack a German convoy in the Baltic, sinking the German 1,800 ton Gerrit Fritzen and damaging another steamer, minesweeper M-3137, sub chaser UJ-303, and patrol ship V-315.

 

• Swinemünde is bombed by the USAAF killing an estimated 15,000 civilians, mostly refugees who have been evacuated from East Prussia by the Kriegsmarine.

 

• 1,108 RAF bombers attack Dortmund, Germany, dropping 4,851 tons of bombs.

 

• German counterattacks to eliminate the American bridgehead at Remagen fail to dislodge elements of US 78th Infantry Division northeast of the bridge. German coordination is poor and Allied tactical aircraft are unopposed. US 9th Armored and 99th Infantry Divisions expand the bridgehead to the east and south.

 

Soldiers of 78th Infantry Division pass wrecked Hetzers in Germany"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• British No. 617 Squadron Lancasters make the first attack with the new 22,000-pound Grand Slam bomb on the Bielefeld viaduct, breaking both spans.

 

 

• 1st Lieutenant Gordon McDaniel of the US 318th Fighter Squadron, flying a P-51 fighter escorting a B-24 mission over Nové Zámky, Hungary, achieves six confirmed kills (all Fw-190 fighters) during a single mission.

 

• The Germans have been pushed out of artillery range of the Remagen bridge over the Rhine. They have hit it with several shells and other near misses, but the engineers are working around the clock to keep the bridge functional while elements of six divisions are crossing. Today eleven Ar-234B jet bombers with Me-262 escort attack the bridge but fail to score hits with four jets being shot down by defending P-38s and P-51s and a fifth downed by a Spitfire during the return to base.

 

- Arado production stops around this time as the factory in Warnemünde is demolished to keep it from being captured intact by advancing Soviet forces."

 

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• The Soviets launch the sixth offensive against the Courland Pocket. Before it is called off in two weeks they will take 74,000 killed and wounded and lose 263 armored vehicles, having gained only a few miles.

 

Soviet MG crew crossing a stream on the Baltic front in 1945

 

• 3rd Ukrainian Front opens the Vienna Offensive west of Lake Balaton. The 3. Magyar Hadsereg (Third Army), plagued with desertions by men unwilling to die for the fascist Arrow Cross Party, is shattered within days.

 

• Two dozen Lancaster and Halifax bombers conduct minelaying operations off Helgoland and in the Kattegat.

 

• 277 Lancasters make the last major raid on Nuremburg. The Luftwaffe demonstrates that the night fighters are still a potent force, shooting down 24 bombers. Bomber Command will increasingly switch to daylight attacks now that fighters based in France and the low countries can escort the bombers all the way to the targets and back.

 

• US Seventh Army continues Operation Undertone. US 100th Infantry Division finishes clearing Bitche while 42nd Infantry Division clears Zinswiller and reaches outskirts of Reichshoffen. After massed artillery fire, 36th Infantry Division crosses Zintzel River and captures Mertzwiller. 3^e Division d’Infanterie Algérienne crosses the Moder and encounters intense house-to-house fighting.

 

• US Third Army begins an assault across the Moselle in Winningen-Kolberg region against light resistance.

 

• American bombers attack Vienna, with many bombs landing in the Tiergarten Schönbrunn. 2,000 out of 3,500 animals in the zoo are killed.

 

• British Liberators attack Monfalcone, Italy, wrecking under construction submarine UIT-6 on the slipway and sinking minesweeper R-14. One bomber struck by bombs from an aircraft above it but survives.

 

Bombs about to hit the Liberator Mk-VI 16 March 45

 

Repairing the same Liberator Mk-VI"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Japan cancels school for all children seven and up, so that students and teachers will work in food and munitions factories, air defence, research work and anything else that helps the war effort.

 

• American submarine Cutlass is commissioned. 80 years later the Tench class boat is still in service with the Taiwanese Navy.

 

ROCS Hai Shih (ex USS Cutlass) is the longest serving submarine in history.

 

• 331 B-29 bombers destroy 7 square kilometers of Kobe, Japan, killing 8,841. Japanese submarine I-158 receives minor damage at the Mitsubishi dockyard. She will be repaired and converted to a "kaiten" human-torpedo carrier.

 

• On Luzon, American forces continue to batter the Shimbu Line with airstrikes, artillery, and assaults, but are unable to break through.

 

• Seventy B-29s bomb Rangoon.

 

• The Japanese continue to hold Fort Dufferin, in Mandalay, while Indian 19th Infantry Division makes another assault but is unable to scale the walls. British 2nd Infantry Division takes Ava Fort south of Mandalay.

 

• Advance elements of Indian 5th Infantry Division break through to support the 17th at Meiktila.

 

• The Chinese 50th Division captures Hsipaw, Burma. With the Japanese taking the Fourteenth Air Force bases in China, Chiang Kai-shek and General Wedemeyer direct that the US 5332nd Provisional Brigade (Mars Force) and the Chinese 30th, 38th, and 50th Divisions be moved by air from Burma to China. This will effectively end Chinese participation in the Burma campaign.

 

Wounded Chinese soldier in Burma"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Japanese river gunboat Suma (former gunboat HMS Moth, scuttled in 1942 and repaired) is mined and sunk in the Yangtze River. The mines were dropped by Fourteenth Air Force planes.

 

• TF-58 continues attacking Japan directly, cruising forty miles off the coast. Japanese aircraft bomb USS Wasp while Essex is damaged by friendly fire. One bomber, probably an Aichi B7A Ryusei, hits USS Franklin’s packed flight deck with two 550 lb bombs.

 

 

- USS Franklin is the most heavily damaged carrier of the war to survive. She suffers 724 killed and 265 wounded. Her Captain, Leslie Gehres, will charge several crewmen with desertion for jumping overboard to avoid death by fire. The cases will be dismissed. USS Franklin will be repaired but mothballed, and scrapped in 1966.

 

- TF-58 aircraft hit airfields on Kyūshū and shipping at Kure and Kobe, destroying incomplete Japanese submarine I-205 in drydock, and damaging battleships Yamato, Hyūga, and Haruna; carriers Ikoma, Katsuragi, Ryūhō and Amagi; small carrier Hōshō; escort carrier Kaiyō; heavy cruiser Tone, light cruiser Ōyodo, submarines I-400 and Ro-67, and escort destroyer Kaki.

 

- Many attacks concentrate on Yamato but fifty-four Kawanishi N1K1 Shiden fighters prevent the Americans from gaining more than a single bomb hit on her superstructure. 14 Japanese and 58 American aircraft are lost.

 

Escort carrier Kaiyō and Unryū class fleet carrier Amagi or Katsuragi today

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Japanese Imperial General Headquarters determines that additional Soviet troops are being transferred to the Far East.

 

• As the Indian 19th Infantry Division plans a final assault on Fort Dufferin, the remaining Japanese flee via the sewers. Once the town is secured, Prime Minister Churchill says, "Thank God we have got a place whose name we can pronounce."

 

 

• After attacking targets in Japan for two days, Task Force 58 begins withdrawing under continued air attacks. USS Enterprise is hit twice by friendly 5” AA fire. One shell detonates over 40mm mounts Nos. 5 and 7 on the starboard side of the flight deck. Almost simultaneously a second 5-inch, 38 cal. projectile detonates off the port bow. Shell fragments from the first detonation pierce the belly gasoline tanks of two F6F planes spotted in the vicinity of the hit, igniting gasoline which spread over the flight deck. The burning gasoline ignites two additional planes and initiated the explosive burning of 40mm ready-service ammunition.

 

 

- The US Navy will report the damage to Enterprise as due to enemy action.

 

- A kamikaze just misses the aircraft carrier Hancock and slams into destroyer Halsey Powell which is alongside with 9 killed and 30 wounded. She will be repaired but not return to the Pacific until after Japan surrenders.

 

USS Enterprise firefighting after friendly fire hits

 

Kamikaze strikes USS Halsey Powell"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• 12,000 troops of German 3. Panzer Armee surrounded near Altdamm (modern Dąbie, Poland) surrender to Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front.

 

• Soviet forces capture Székesfehérvár, Hungary.

 

• Yugoslav, Bulgarian, and Soviet forces have successfully prevented 2. Panzer Armee from advancing across the Dráva River as the southern part of the German Operation Spring Awakening. 2. Panzer Armee had been reinforced by LXXXXI Armeekorps of Heersgruppe E and the massing of forces has significantly weakened the overall German defense in Yugoslavia – a situation that will be rapidly exploited by Tito’s Yugoslav National Liberation Army.

 

• Commonwealth Kittyhawk and Mustang squadrons specialized in dive bombing attack Venice Harbour, sinking two merchant ships, fleet torpedo boat TA-24 (ex-Italian Alabarda) as well as destroying an Axis mine stockpile and a training center for frogmen and manned torpedoes.

 

Australian Mustang IIIs (background) and Mustang IVs over Italy in 1945.

 

• RAF Beaufighters sink schnellboote S-181 and S-203 in the North Sea off the Dutch coast.

 

• A German V-2 rocket hits the Packard factory in London, destroying it and damaging 13 factories and 662 houses; it kills 32 and injured 560. Another V-2 hits Primrose Hill in St Pancras, damaging the reservoir and injuring 14 people.

 

• At the request of the Danish Resistance, the RAF conducts a low level attack against the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen. The Gestapo has imprisoned 32 resistance members and gathered extensive records with which they plan a sweep of the resistance movement. Twenty Mosquitos from British, Australian, and New Zealand squadrons sweep in at rooftop height in three waves covered by thirty Mustang fighters. One in the first wave clips a lamp-post and crashes into the Jeanne d’Arc School just under a mile from the target. Several following aircraft think the smoke marks the target and bomb it.

 

- Although the headquarters is severely damaged, many records are destroyed, and 18 prisoners are able to escape, 86 schoolchildren and 18 adults are killed at the school. 55 Germans, 47 Danish Gestapo employees, and 8 prisoners are killed. Four Mosquitos and two Mustangs are lost with nine airmen killed.

 

Mosquito over Copenhagen

 

Gestapo Headquarters after the raid

 

• A Bell P-63 shoots down a Japanese incendiary balloon near Reno, Nevada.

 

• The Japanese make the first operational sortie with the Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka (“Cherry Blossom”) suicide rocket powered aircraft as Task Force 58 begins returning to Ulithi. Although the Ohka can exceed 600 mph in a dive, it has very limited range. This is a fatal flaw as the slow, heavily laden mother aircraft have to approach within twenty miles of the target, making them very vulnerable to defending fighters. All sixteen Mitsubishi G4M2e bombers of 321st Squadron are downed by TF-58 CAP short of their release points.

 

Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka

 

• While US Sixth Army is still trying to break through Japanese lines in northern Luzon, Filipino guerillas liberate San Fernando.

 

• Japanese convoy HI-88I comes under air and submarine attack off French Indochina. USS Blenny sinks merchant tankers No.21 Nanshin Maru and Hosen Maru. USS Baya sinks auxiliary netlayer Kainan Maru, and although damaged by depth charges, remains on patrol. US Fifth Air Force B-25s sink submarine chaser Ch-33, cable layer Tateishi, and cargo vessels No.1 Motoyama Maru, Fushimi Maru and No.6 Takasago Maru.

 

• US Task Force 92’s attempt to bombard Suribachi on Paramushiru in the Kuriles with elderly light cruisers Concord, Richmond, and Trenton is thwarted due to heavy sea ice.

 

• In China, Japan launches a fresh offensive with five infantry and one tank division plus two mixed and one cavalry brigades with the goal of capturing the US Fourteenth Air Force bases at Laohokow and Ankong."

 

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• Adolf Hitler's personal Ju-290A aircraft is destroyed by Allied bombing at Munich.

 

• 4th Ukrainian Front launches an offensive to capture the Moravska Ostrawa area of Slovakia from 1. Panzer Armee.

 

• Fourth Guards Army captures Mor and Kisber in Hungary. 2. Panzer Armee is in danger of being encircled.

 

• The outbound U-249 is attacked by a British Mosquito off Bergen. The plane is shot down but the u-boat returns to base for repairs.

 

• Soviet submarine L-21 torpedoes and sinks the German tug Erni off Kolberg.

 

• With reporters looking on, George Patton urinates into the Rhine. Upon completing his crossing over a pontoon bridge, he takes some dirt on the far bank, emulating his favorite historical figure William the Conqueror.

 

• As a follow-on to Operation Plunder’s crossing of the Rhine, the First Allied Airborne Army drops the veteran British 6th and green American 17th Airborne Divisions across the Rhine on either side of Wesel in Operation Varsity. Initial plans to also drop the even greener US 13th Airborne Division are dropped due to lack of airlift capacity.

 

- This video covers both Plunder and Varsity:

 

 

- The drop is observed by Churchill, Eisenhower, and Montgomery. Both divisions take their initial objectives, but incur heavy casualties.

 

- This is the first airdrop to use the Curtiss C-46 Commando. Although the C-46 can carry more paratroopers, it is unable to take damage as does the rugged Douglas C-47. 26% of all C-46s involved are shot down, compared to less than 4% of the C-47s, though 339 of the C-47s return with battle damage. XVIII Airborne Corps commander Matthew Ridgway will issue an edict forbidding the use of C-46s in future airborne operations, relegating them to a strict transport role.

 

- Varsity is also the last mass airdrop in history. Operation Arena is scheduled for north-central Germany in May, but will be cancelled with the German surrender. Mass airborne drops are also intended for the invasion of Japan, which will not occur.

 

C-47s dropping paratroops over Rees-Wesel area 24 March 1945

 

British Duplex Drive Shermans crossing the Rhine 24 March 1945

 

US 30th Division M29 returning with wounded and prisoner"

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• The final V-2 missiles to hit England land with two in London, killing 251, and one in Kent, inflicting no casualties.

 

• German battleship Gneisenau is sunk as a blockship at Gotenhafen (Gdynia).

 

Gneisenau, probably in the winter of 1945-46. Her 11” turrets had previously been removed in order to upgrade her to 15” guns. She has been decommissioned since suffering heavy bomb damage in 1942.

 

• German 4. Armee is being rapidly destroyed as Soviet forces take Gdynia and Danzig. Within days it will cease to exist, having lost 93,000 killed and 47,000 captured, with 605 tanks, 3,600 artillery pieces, 1,400 mortars, and 130 aircraft destroyed.

 

• The Sixth Guards Tank, Fourth Guards, and Ninth Guards Armies cross the Rába River into Austria on a broad front west of Kőszeg, Hungary.

 

• The French 27^e Division d’ Infanterie Alpine begins clearing German positions in the Petit St Bernard Pass on the Franco-Italian border.

 

• British XII Corps and XXX Corps are rapidly expanding the Rhine bridgeheads. XVIII Airborne Corps troops are advancing through the Wesel Forest.

 

6th Kings Own Scottish Borderers advance past fallen German paratroopers east of the Rhine

 

US 9th Armored Division troops in Engers 27 Mar 45"

 

• The USN and USAAF commence Operation Starvation to close Japanese ports, channels, and straits with aerial mining. Today, ninety-two Marianas based B-29 aircraft drop a thousand magnetic and acoustic mines in the Kanmon Straits near Shimonoseki, Japan. Fifty-nine India based B-29s mine Shanghai, Cam Ranh Bay, Saigon, and Singapore.

 

B-29 dropping aerial mines off Japan.

 

• While operating off Okinawa, destroyer USS O’Brien is heavily damaged by a Japanese kamikaze aircraft with 53 killed.

 

• Japanese midget submarine Ha-208 is bombed and sunk off Okinawa while charging batteries on the surface.

 

• The Japanese auxiliary minelayer Ma-1 is sunk off Belawan, Sumatra after hitting a mine laid eight months earlier by HMS Porpoise.

 

• Japanese minelayer Wakataka has just re-entered service following repairs after being damaged by Dutch submarine Zwaardvisch in October, 1944. Today, HMS Stygian torpedoes her northeast of Surabaya, blowing off her bow. She will spend the rest of the war under repair at Surabaya.

 

• As part of the operations to clear the islands and open Manila Bay to shipping, one battalion of the 38th Infantry Division, supported by destroyers Conway and Cony and three rocket-equipped motor torpedo boats, lands on Caballo Island near Corregidor, preceded by an air strike."