On This Day during WW2....

beauf

http://dailym.ai/171FhQ6 Warsaw Uprising in colour: Black and white pictures taken during doomed 1944 revolt against the ... #MailOnline

Crann na Beatha

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Artur.PL

01/02/44.
SS Brigadefuhrer Franz Kutschera, SS and Reich's Police Chief in Warsaw was killed by Home Army's Anti-Gestapo unit Agat.

Capt'n Midnight

Forgot to post the 70th anniversary of the lifting of the Siege of Leningrad

http://www.dw.de/russia-remembers-nazi-siege-of-leningrad/a-17390645

President Vladimir Putin on Monday visited the main siege memorial in western Russia's city that now bears the name Saint Petersburg, saying the world should never forget the "courage and heroism of the Soviet people and residents of Leningrad."

The Kremlin said Putin's elder brother, Viktor, born in 1940, died as an infant in 1942 during the 872-day siege and was buried in a mass grave.

Meeting survivors and laying flowers, Putin recalled that "360,000 civilians died in Leningrad over a period of just four months from the end of 1941 to the start of 1942."

He drew a comparison to the United Kingdom, saying: "Britain lost nearly the same amount in the entire World War Two."

BlaasForRafa

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Forgot to post the 70th anniversary of the lifting of the Siege of Leningrad

There's quite a few 70th anniversaries at the moment. This time 70 years ago the battle of Monte Cassino was raging and on the eastern front the Germans were trying to escape encirclement in the Korsun pocket http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korsun_Pocket

Jawgap

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

There's quite a few 70th anniversaries at the moment. This time 70 years ago the battle of Monte Cassino was raging and on the eastern front the Germans were trying to escape encirclement in the Korsun pocket http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korsun_Pocket

Indeed, the First Battle of Monte Cassino was in full swing this time 70 years ago. It would take the Allies (incl the 36 Infantry (Irish) Brigade of the 78th Division) three more battles and the guts of three months to winkle the German defenders from their positions, break through and begin to advance on Rome.

Jawgap

12 Feb 1942 - Lt Eugene Esmonde VC killed leading an attack against the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen during their Channel Dash.....

Esmonde's Swordfish's and Kingcombe's much faster Spitfires met briefly at 12:32 hours. It happened more or less by accident as the fighters dived out of the clouds and spotted the Swordfish beneath them. The latter were now divided into two sub-flights travelling in line astern. Esmonde was leading the first, Sub-Lieutenant Thompson the second. The target was estimated as 37 kilometers (23 miles) away on a bearing of 140° from Ramsgate. At this point, they were travelling at 457 meter (1.500 feet). Later, they came down to between 15 and 30 meter (50-100 feet).

It was no more than a passing encounter. The air space was overpopulated by enemy (German) fighters. The ships down below were saturating the sky with AA fire regardless, it seemed, of who was friend and who was foe. The attacks began when a formation of Focke-Wulf 190s swooped down on 72 Squadron 16 kilometers (10 miles) off the coast. This effectively put an end to the fighter cover. Kingcombe and his pilots became too heavily involved in a general dogfight to be of any assistance to Esmonde and his Swordfish.

Esmonde caught his first glimpse of the ships when he saw the German Schnellboats (E-boats) and destroyers about 34 kilometers (21 miles) away on his port bow. Two of the larger units could just be seen through the smoke screen, but their outlines were blurred and it was impossible to identify them.

By this time, Esmonde's Swordfish had already been hit. The port main wing had been shot to ribbons, and it seemed about to crash. But the aircraft recovered. It was now over the destroyer screen and Esmonde made a slight change of course in the direction of the big ships. Shortly afterwards he appears to have released the torpedo. The final reckoning came when he was 2.743 meters (3.000 yards) from the main target. The aircraft was hit again and it crashed into the sea. All three men in it were killed.

Unfortunately all the squadron's torpedoes went wide of their marks.

BlaasForRafa

Jawgap wrote: »

12 Feb 1942 - Lt Eugene Esmonde VC killed leading an attack against the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen during their Channel Dash.....

A brave yet ultimately suicidal attack. I recall reading that the attacking FW-190s needed to deploy full flaps and lower their undercarriage so as not to overshoot the slow Swordfishes, and ran the risk of stalling their engines and dropping into the sea themselves.

roundymac

Am I correct in saying that he was from Mallow?

Jawgap

roundymac wrote: »

Am I correct in saying that he was from Mallow?

Kilkenny, I thought - but I'm basing that on the fact that my mother-in-law is a distant relation of his and she's a Kilkenny-woman.

A Corkman - Group Captain Victor Beamish (one of the famous Beamish brothers who served the RAF and Irish rugby so well!) made the initial sighting of the ships.

The operation to intercept them was a rolling disaster and is often regarded as a tactical defeat for the British, but an even greater setback for the Germans - it left three of their most powerful surface units blockaded with at least two of them sustaining significant damage.

Jawgap

Speaking of things large, grey and German........

75 years ago today Bismarck was launched......

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

audidiesel

9th May 1945 - Victory Day - Nazi Germany officially capitulates to Soviet Russia.


(They had previously surrendered on 7 May 1945 (VE Day), but this was not to the Soviet Envoy and Stalin ordered the official surrender two days later in Berlin to Marshal Zhukov).

RED L4 0TH

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

This time 70 years ago the battle of Monte Cassino was raging

Final battles of this would be underway now. Polish flag raised on the heights on May 18 1944.

audidiesel

17th May 1943 - The dambusters raid

RED L4 0TH

Jawgap wrote: »

Speaking of things large, grey and German........

75 years ago today Bismarck was launched......

73 years ago today sinks HMS Hood.

Photo taken from the accompanying heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen of the Bismarck during this engagement.

beauf

The Hood blew up sank in 3 mins with 1418 lost and 3 survivors. Most likely a 15" shell penetrated the armour belt and hit a magazine. Resulting in an enormous explosion. That section of the ship simply disappeared.

Just staggering.

Jawgap

31 May 1941 - the North Strand in Dublin is bombed by the Luftwaffe.

Snickers Man

roundymac wrote: »

Am I correct in saying that he was from Mallow?

Jawgap wrote: »

Kilkenny, I thought - but I'm basing that on the fact that my mother-in-law is a distant relation of his and she's a Kilkenny-woman.

Jaysus lads!!! Was he a Corkman or a Kilkennyman? Is there a worse insult you could level at a man from Tipperary???

Eugene Esmonde was born in Yorkshire the son of an Irish Nationalist MP and doctor. He was a scion of an ennobled Irish catholic family. His elder half brother inherited a baronetcy that had been in the family for generations.

Eugene returned to Ireland as an infant and is recorded as a two year old in the National Census of 1911 living at Drominah Demesne (the family pile) in Tipperary. He was educated at Clongowes and served in the RAF in the 1930s before beginning a career as a commercial pilot.

He rejoined the forces on the outbreak of war and served in the Fleet Air Arm. He was one of three "Irish" VCs cited by Churchill as examples of the true Irish spirit in his infamous radio speech at the end of the war in which he accused De Valera of "frolicking with the Germans and Japanese".

Azwaldo55

The Allies entered Rome on June 4th 1944 exactly 70 years ago. The notoriously vain American commander, Mark Clark ordered the Allies to take the open city which had been vacated by the retreating Nazis allowing the German 10th Army to escape from Monte Cassino and join Kesselring's forces which were regrouping at the Gothic Line. The instability and weakness of the German front was not exploited negating the blood sacrifice made by thousands of Allied troops who had fought the Battle of Monte Cassino for months. The capture of the city was good politics but in truth the city had little strategic value. Clark's glory was short-lived as two days later he was overshadowed by the D-Day landings in France. The Gothic line held until March 1944 claiming thousands more Allied lives while behind the German front line Italian partisan activity resulted in brutal reprisals against Italian civilians. Northern Italy was not liberated until May 2 1945.

Jawgap

Battle of Midway concludes

BlaasForRafa

That photo above reminded me of another picture I saw in a book on Japanese Heavy Cruisers I got recently. The Mikuma was the first Japanese cruiser lost in WW2, bomb damage amidships caused fires which spread to the Torpedo magazine which exploded and completely devastated the ship

beauf

Wow

Jawgap

1941 - Barbarossa

1944 - Bagration

RED L4 0TH

28 June 1942: Germany launches it's Summer offensive in southern Russia which eventually ended in defeat at Stalingrad.

Wibbs

Been reading this forum for years, so thought I should make a somewhat relevant post...

During the summer of1941, 239 squadron of the Regia Aeronautica(Italian Airforce) armed with JU 87 Stukas, called Picchiatelli by the Italians*, launched attacks on allied shipping in the Mediterranean from bases in North Africa. Here's a photo from the rear gunner position on one particular attack on this day in 1941.



You can see by the wake how the ship was taking evasive maneuveurs, but bombs were getting close(I can see three).

On the back it has the stamp of 239 Squadron and the name of its commander Giuseppe Cenni.



Another photo from the same raid.



Text reads: Ship bombardment of auxiliary cruiser type, carried out off Mersa(Egypt I think) by 239 squadron on 30/6/41




*contrary to some reports on other Italian units and the post war BS, the German Stuka pilots had great respect for their Italian counterparts and considered them extremely good pilots.

Capt'n Midnight

Not actually during WWII
Tonight was the Night Of The Long Knives. Hitler removed the last major rivals internally and form the old guard, removed socialism from the National Socialist Party and was a major step to the Hitler Oath which was to be so troublesome when people realised they were on the path to war.

"I swear by God this sacred oath that to the Leader of the German empire and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, I shall render unconditional obedience and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives

Jawgap

5 July 1943

Operation Citadel - The German Summer Offensive - launches

Jawgap

10 July 1940 - nominal start date for the Battle of Britain

Jawgap

While we're at it - Operation HUSKY launched 71 Years ago......

Larger than OVERLORD it was the first contested amphibious landing since Gallipoli

Jawgap

First phase of Operation MALLORY MAJOR - the effort to interdict the Po bridges - launched 70 years ago today

Jawgap

20th July 1944 - 70 years since Tom Cruise tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler......

http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/106479,WWII-July-bomb-plot-remembered

Itssoeasy

On this day in WW2 the US dropped the atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Jawgap

13 August 1940 - ADLER TAG, (Eagle Day), the start of Luftwaffe's intensive attacks on the RAF to destroy it as a fighting force.......

andy_g

On this day the Santa Maria Convoy pulled into Valletta Grand Harbor delivering the first supplies to Malta, everything from food oil and aircraft for RAF Halfar and RAF Ta Qali (Ta Kali)

Jawgap

1942 - Battle of Stalingrad begins

Dr conrad murray

On this day in 1944 Paris was liberated

Jawgap

Pearl Harbour

Jawgap

16 December 1940 - the Germans launch the Ardennes Offendive, Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine), the Americans would refer to it as the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign, and it would be more popularly known as the 'Battle of the Bulge' because of the salient it created.

babybuilder

1940?

Jawgap

babybuilder wrote: »

1940?

:o:o

1944.......

Aenaes

Something you don't hear much about


"Typhoon in the Philippines

On December 17, 1944, U.S. Task Force 38 was 300 miles away from its destination: Luzon, Philippines. As the ships prepared to refuel at the island of Mindoro, winds began to pick up. "A moderate cross swell and a wind varying from 20 to 30 knots made fueling difficult," Admiral William Halsey recounted in his autobiography. He was told by his staff aerologist that it was only a "tropical disturbance."

As the storm intensified, Halsey suspended refueling and ordered his ships to move away from the storm. It was no longer a "tropical disturbance" but a typhoon. On December 18, it was on a collision course with the task force. Many of Halsey's destroyers were very low on fuel, causing the ships to ride treacherously high on the sea. As the center of the typhoon passed close to the task force, hurricane-force winds buffeted massive waves against the helpless vessels. "Shortly after twelve o'clock...," an officer on the destroyer Hull later reported, "the wind velocity increased to an unbelievable high point which I estimated at 110 knots. The force of this wind laid the ship steadily over on her starboard side."

When the storm passed, Halsey recounted, it had "swamped three destroyers, cost the lives of 790 men, wrecked some 200 planes, and damaged twenty-eight ships." Over the next three days, every able ship and plane searched desperately for survivors. Following the disaster, the worst the U.S. Navy had suffered in a storm since 1889, new weather stations and offices were established across the Pacific."

Elmer Blooker

The bombing of Dresden, February 13th 1945.
70 years ago today.

B17G

The Russians began their offensive to capture Berlin 70 years ago today. The city was finally taken on 2 May 1945.

B17G

Adolf Hitler commits suicide 70 years ago today.

Skylinehead

Battle of Berlin ends.

Greenmachine

Today marks the 70th Anniversary of VE, the end of the 2nd world war. A occasional to celebrate. Commemoration last year of the beginning of WWI doesn't sit the same way as celebrating the end of a war. Anyone else feel the same.

Jawgap

71 years ago tonight......



Pathfinders preparing for departure.

gizmo555

The Battle of Carentan took place between June 10 and 15, 1944. Louis Simpson, the US poet, served in Europe with the 101st Airborne from D-Day to the end of the war. He wrote this poem about his experience of the battle.

"Carentan O Carentan"

Trees in the old days used to stand
And shape a shady lane
Where lovers wandered hand in hand
Who came from Carentan.

This was the shining green canal
Where we came two by two
Walking at combat-interval.
Such trees we never knew.

The day was early June, the ground
Was soft and bright with dew.
Far away the guns did sound,
But here the sky was blue.

The sky was blue, but there a smoke
Hung still above the sea
Where the ships together spoke
To towns we could not see.

Could you have seen us through a glass
You would have said a walk
Of farmers out to turn the grass,
Each with his own hay-fork.

The watchers in their leopard suits
Waited till it was time,
And aimed between the belt and boot
And let the barrel climb.

I must lie down at once, there is
A hammer at my knee.
And call it death or cowardice,
Don't count again on me.

Everything's all right, Mother,
Everyone gets the same
At one time or another.
It's all in the game.

I never strolled, nor ever shall,
Down such a leafy lane.
I never drank in a canal,
Nor ever shall again.

There is a whistling in the leaves
And it is not the wind,
The twigs are falling from the knives
That cut men to the ground.

Tell me, Master-Sergeant,
The way to turn and shoot.
But the Sergeant's silent
That taught me how to do it.

O Captain, show us quickly
Our place upon the map.
But the Captain's sickly
And taking a long nap.

Lieutenant, what's my duty,
My place in the platoon?
He too's a sleeping beauty,
Charmed by that strange tune.

Carentan O Carentan
Before we met with you
We never yet had lost a man
Or known what death could do.

Louis Simpson, 1923-2012.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtb1gxZ9kM0