THE THREAD!!!

[Zovs]

Good Morning Folks!

World War II Today: November 8

1939
A bomb intended to kill Hitler explodes at the annual meeting of the veterans of the 1923 Nazi Putsch in Munich, but the Fuhrer had already left the beer cellar. The German media accused Britain of orchestrating the assassination attempt on Hitler.

Two British SIS agents, Major Richard Stevens and Captain S. Payne Best, are captured in Holland by the Germans.

Finland refuses Soviet demand for territory.

Former lawyer for Al Capone, Edward “Easy Eddie” O’Hare, is gunned down in Chicago for aiding IRS conviction of Capone; his son Butch will be a Navy ace pilot and namesake for O’Hare Airport.

1940
Italians begin big offensive in Albania.

Greek troops take 5,000 Italian prisoners.

RAF Bomber Command disrupts a speech being made by Hitler at Munich.

An earthquake damages the vital Romanian oilfields.

Melbourne, Australia over three nights in November 1940, the German minelaying ship Passat, a captured Norwegian tanker, had strategically planted 110 sea mines in Bass Strait, a busy trade route between Tasmania and Victoria. This field of mines had already claimed the British steamer SS Cambridge (1916) less than 24 hours previously off Wilsons Promontory. The 20-year-old American freighter SS City of Rayville fell victim to another of Passat’s mines, this off Victoria’s Cape Otway at the western end of the strait.

1941
Army Group North advances across the Volkhov river and captures Tikhivin.

Hitler claims that Soviet losses are as high as eight to ten million.

1942
On the anniversary of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, Hitler tells his old comrades that Stalingrad is practically in German hands, adding that he didn’t want to take that city just because it happens to bear the name of Stalin.

Operation ‘Torch’ begins with Anglo-American forces under Lieutenant General Eisenhower landing in Morocco and Algeria against minimal Vichy French resistance.

Petain orders French troops in North Africa to resist the Allies. Some do, but Algiers falls on the first day.

Mersa Matruh is re-taken by British.

Eighth Air Force Heavy Bomber Mission No. 17: 38 aircraft dispatched to attack industrial targets at Lille, 15 to attack airfield at Abbeville/Drucat. One aircraft lost.

1943
Hitler in his last speech to Nazi Party says “We shall go on fighting past 12 o’clock”.

The British Eighth Army gains the heights on the Sangro less than 100 miles East of Rome.

First significant Japanese counterattack on Bougainville is repulsed. On the same day the Japanese begin a second attack against a different part of the beachhead but the two attacks are badly coordinated.

1944
For the first time in the history of the Third Reich, Hitler fails to appear in Munich to address “the Old Fighters” on the anniversary of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Speculation mounts as Himmler reads a speech in the Fuhrer’s place.

25,000 Jews are forced to walk over 100 miles in rain and snow from Budapest to the Austrian border, followed by a second forced march of 50,000 persons, ending at Mauthausen Concentration camp.

Canadians secure Walcheren and the Scheldt Estuary to protect port of Antwerp, Belgium. German resistance on Walcheren island ends. The Battle of the Scheldt and Operation Infatuate ended in Allied victory.

US Third Army begins offensive against Siegfried line toward Metz, France.

Joseph Goebbels announced the V-2 rocket campaign for the first time. Winston Churchill followed suit and finally announced that England had been under rocket attack, providing the people of London with an explanation for all the mysterious explosions of recent weeks.

The American submarine Growler was sunk west of the Philippines by Japanese warships.

After his 258th victory, German Luftwaffe ace Walter Nowotny is killed as his Me 262 jet is shot down by two US P-51 Mustangs.

British launch offensive in western Burma toward Akyab.

[Zovs]

UNP

whoops

[btd64]

Good morning peeps ....GP

[Orm]

Evening Gentlemen. Ladies.

[RangerJoe]

Armistice Day, Veterans Day, the anniversary of the end of the First World War is on Monday . . .

do it again.jpg (47.16 KiB) Viewed 216 times

Orm, I hope that you wake up to a beautiful day and have a great weekend.

cat is baby.jpg (32.44 KiB) Viewed 216 times

Everybody else as well, have a good day and a beautiful weekend.

[Zovs]

Good morning Folks!

World War II Today: November 9

1937
Japanese troops invade Shanghai, China.

1938
Nazis kill 35 Jews, arrest thousands and destroy Jewish synagogues, homes and stores throughout Germany. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, the night of the shattered glass.

1939
Finns reject Soviet demands. Soviet Union declares war on 13 November.

The Venlo Incident - German agents kidnap two British spies, Sigismund Payne Best and Richard Stevens, from neutral Holland in one of the best known British intelligence failures of the war.

Movie premiere of Ninotchka, Greta Garbo’s first comedy.

1940
The Italian "Venezia" Division of the Alpini is cut off in the Pindus area.

Luftwaffe carries out widespread night raids.

RAF attacks Lorient, Boulogne and Calais.

Start of a counter-offensive by the British Army against the Italian forces that have advanced into Egypt.

Germany expels 180,000 Frenchmen from the recently-annexed Alsace-Lorraine region of France.

Neville Chamberlain, the former British prime minister, dies from cancer at the age of 71.

1941
German troops capture Yalta and the Tikhvin railhead.

Royal Navy Surface Force K from Malta annihilates an Italian convoy of seven supply ships and sinks two destroyers.

1942
Naval battles off Oran and Casablanca, result in three French destroyers being sunk.

US troops advance on both sides of Oran, taking 2,000 French prisoners after stiff resistance. German paratroops are landed in Tunisia without opposition from the French.

German planes transport troops to El Aouina Airfield in French Tunisia to combat Allied landings in Algeria.

Germans force Danish King Christian to appoint pro-Nazi Erik Scavenius as prime minister.

German spy Werner Janowski is landed by U-boat U-518 at New Carlisle, Quebec, but is arrested within hours on a tip from a suspicious hotel clerk.

Eighth Air Force Heavy Bomber Mission No. 18: 47 aircraft dispatched to attack U-boat base at St. Nazaire. Three aircraft lost.

Allied troops surround Oran.

The Vichy government cuts diplomatic relations with the Allies.

1943
General Charles de Gaulle is named president of the French Committee of National Liberation, the “Free French,” in the wake of the resignation of General Henri Giraud.

German submarine U-707 sunk with all hands off the Azores.

United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) formed in Atlantic City.

1944
The last Germans on Walcheren surrender. German forces evacuate the Moerdijk bridgehead across the Meuse river.

Allied troops in Italy crossed the Montone River.

Total U.S. war casualties are now reported to have passed the 500,000 mark.

Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the International Red Cross.

Victory Ship SS Red Oak Victory is launched in Richmond, CA, christened by the wife of the mayor of Red Oak, IA, Permanente Shipyard’s 558th ship (currently a museum ship in Richmond, CA).

Georges Suarez, editor of French fascist paper Aujourd’hui, is first French writer executed for collaboration.

3nd Ukrainian Front captures a bridgehead over the Danube.

US 3rd Army crosses the Moselle, establishing bridgeheads at Chemino and Chateau Salins.

British 14th Army captures Fort White, Burma.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Good day!


Leo "Apollo11"

[btd64]

Good afternoon everyone ....GP

[RangerJoe]

1938
Nazis kill 35 Jews, arrest thousands and destroy Jewish synagogues, homes and stores throughout Germany. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, the night of the shattered glass.

The German government put a large indemnity on the German Jews because a diplomat in France had been assassinated by a Jewish man upset because his family was caught between Germany and Poland when the German government deported the Jews who had been born in what became part of Western Poland who the Polish government was not allowing into the country.

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

But something good happened on the 9th of November, 1989 . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn4VDwaV-oo

attention border.jpg (258.6 KiB) Viewed 163 times

I remember East German communities as being dingy compared to West Germany but the countryside was beautiful. That is all I will write about that . . .

[Orm]

Morning Gentlemen. Ladies.

[Zovs]

Good morning folks!

Nice follow up post RJ.

World War II Today: November 10

1939
RAF fighters shoot down a German flying boat off the east coast.

A Lockheed Hudson of No.220 Squadron becomes the first Coastal Command aircraft to shoot down a German aircraft. Their victim was a Do.18 of 3.Staffel/ K.Fl.Gr.406, which capsized after being forced to make an emergency landing.

Royal Navy announces that HMS Rover has been lost.

The Dutch begin to inundate areas to provide a defensive buffer.

“The Venlo Incident”—Germans kidnap two British MI6 agents in Dutch town of Venlo; the MI6 agents will be accused of the previous day’s assassination attempt on Hitler.

1940
A torpedo bomber raid cripples the Italian fleet at Taranto, Italy.

Italian attack across the River Kalamas is repulsed.

Libreville (Gabon) surrenders to the Free French.

It is announced that aircraft from the Ark Royal have attacks Cagliari, Sardinia.

The British submarine H-49 is considered to be lost.

RAF attacks Boulogne and Calais.

Luftwaffe carries out heavy day and night raids on Britain.

1941
Churchill’s Mansion House Speech: Tells Japan that war on US means war on Britain. The Japanese Foreign Minister says their aim is to make the US and UK retreat from East Asia.

US Army updates uniform regulations: the Parsons field jacket and M1 steel helmet are added.

First US-escorted troop convoy, WS-12X, sails from Halifax, Nova Scotia, for India via Cape Town with 20,000 British troops.

Churchill announces that the RAF now has parity with the Luftwaffe.

Britain decides to declare war on Japan if the United States is attacked.

Plans are put in place to dispatch a powerful fleet to the Far East if war with Japan appears to be close.

1942
The Americans capture Oran. Petain takes command of all Vichy forces. British successes in Egypt continue with the capture of Sidi Barrani.

Admiral Jean Darlan orders French forces in North Africa to cease resistance to the Anglo-American forces.

In a daring raid in Morocco, destroyer USS Dallas steams up Wadi Sebou under the Kasbah, and takes Port Lyautey Airfield.

Victories in North Africa lead Churchill to proclaim, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Movie premiere of Road to Morocco, starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour.

President Roosevelt announces the breaking-off of diplomatic relations with Vichy France.

Just 2 days after Allied landings in Vichy French-held Morocco and Algeria (Operation Torch), Italian dictator Benito Mussolini sent his son-in-law, foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano, to Munich in his stead to speak with Adolf Hitler. Mussolini had wanted to meet the Fuehrer in Salzburg, in the Austrian Alps, at the end of the month. But events at the top of the month in North Africa now totally consumed his attention and prevented him from leaving the Italian capital.

Rommel's rearguard is forced out of Sidi Barrani and retreat to Buq Buq.

Italian submarine Emo is badly damaged by the British trawler HMS Lord Nuffield and is scuttled by her crew.

1943
The Red Army achieves a breakthrough near Gomel in Byelorussia.

German submarine U-966 sunk off Cape Ortegal.

1944
V-2 rockets continue to hit Britain, at the rate of about eight a day.

Nazi occupation forces in the Netherlands began a two-day roundup of 50,000 men in Rotterdam to be sent to Germany for forced labour.

Allied forces launched Operation Clipper, an offensive to reduce the Geilenkirchen salient.

The Allies recognized the government of Albanian partisan leader Enver Hoxha.

The American ammunition ship Mount Hood exploded and sank at Seeadler Harbor, Manus, Admiralty Islands with the loss of all 350 crew.

US 3rd Army holds off a German counterattack.

British 8th Army captures Forli.

The Japanese capture the US air base at Kweilin (Kwangsi province).

Soviet forces cross the Danube in force.

The Allies recognized the government of Albanian partisan leader Enver Hoxha.[13]

German submarine U-537 was torpedoed and sunk in the Java Sea by the American submarine Flounder.

Japanese take US Fourteenth Air Force air bases at Kweilin and Liuchow in their drive through southern China.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Good day!


Leo "Apollo11"

[BBfanboy]

Zovs: Royal Navy announces that HMS Rover has been lost.

This is misleading. There was a British sub SS Rover built in 1930 which survived the war. The HMS Rover reported was likely the trawler HMS Northern Rover, torpedoed by a U-Boat on October 30th. I suppose announcement of the loss was delayed while families of the crew were being notified of their loved-one's fate.

[RangerJoe]

Zovs: Royal Navy announces that HMS Rover has been lost.

This is misleading. There was a British sub SS Rover built in 1930 which survived the war. The HMS Rover reported was likely the trawler HMS Northern Rover, torpedoed by a U-Boat on October 30th. I suppose announcement of the loss was delayed while families of the crew were being notified of their loved-one's fate.

The submarine provided power to the HMS York* (Souda Bay, Crete) until she was damaged by bombs. HMS Rover operated out of Ceylon but doesn't appear to be in WITP:AE even though she was credited with sinking 10 Japanese ships.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Rover_(N62)

HMS York was the lead ship, HMS Exeter was her sister although there were unimportant differences which made their silhouettes different.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_York_(90)

The HMS Northern Rover I guess could be called an escapee since she was built at Deschimag Werk Seebeck, Bremerhaven!
https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/86.html

[RangerJoe]

Good morning folks!

Nice follow up post RJ.

Thank you.

I would post a picture of Edda van Heemstra but that might violate the rules, even though she was a member of the Dutch resistance. She was not in the Rotterdam are but rather Velp (Arhnem area). Her parents were fascists and her father was imprisoned during World War 2, her mother changed her mind after her brother-in-law died. She suffered from malnutrition during the winter of 1944-45 and took her "job" as a UNICEF ambassador seriously. During the winter of 1944-45, those men from Rotterdam may have been better fed than the civilians left behind.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world- ... pburn.html

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Good morning!


Leo "Apollo11"

[Zovs]

Good morning folks!

Happy Veterans Day to you Vets out there!

Thanks for your service, yes that also includes my Jarhead friends (from an Army DAT ).

Veteran’s Day – World War II Today: November 11

1885
General George S. Patton is born.

1918
At 11 a.m. World War I, the war to end all wars, ends.

1939
Queen Elizabeth broadcasts a message to the women of the Empire, calling them to join the war effort.

Germany repeats her assurance that the neutrality of Belgium and Holland will be respected.

RAF carries out reconnaissance over south west Germany.

Movie premiere of historical drama The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, starring Bette Davis & Errol Flynn.

1940
On the anniversary of the end of World War I, several hundred Paris students stage a disorganized protest on the Champs Elysee over the arrest of a popular professor. Although Gaullists in London report several deaths, it appears no one was killed, but 123 students are arrested. Although it is the first sign of organized anti-German feeling since the armistice in June, German authorities report to Berlin that the small size and unorganized nature of the protest demonstrates that pro-Gaullist feeling is minimal.

Italian aircraft attack Thames Estuary with little success: first and last Italian air attack on Britain.

The British Fleet launches an air attack against the Italian fleet at Taranto. Swordfish aircraft from the Aircraft Carrier HMS Illustrious damage three battleships, two cruisers, two destroyers and two auxiliaries craft. This British victory, forces the Italians to temporary withdraw their big surface units to the safer ports on the west coast of Italy.

The RAF’s first offensive air operations in Greece are carried out by Blenheims in a low-level attack on Valaca airfield.

Gabon joins De Gaulle and the Free French.

1941
German submarine U-580 sunk in collision with German merchantman off Memel.

1942
In the United States the draft age is lowered to 18

The United States extends Lend-Lease aid to the Free French Forces under General de Gaulle.

German forces begin the occupation of those parts of France controlled by the Vichy government. In a letter to Marshal Petain, Hitler declares that the purpose of this move is “to protect France” against the allies.

French Admiral Jean Francios Darlan joins French General Alphonse Juin in calling an all-out cease fire for French forces throughout Africa.

6th Army launches its last major attack to capture Stalingrad and succeeds in reaching the Volga near the Red October factory on a frontage of 600 yards. The 13th Panzer-Division of III Panzer Corps begins to disengage its units halted before Ordshonikidse to avoid being cut off by the heavy Soviet attacks against its communications.

British 8th Army captured Bardia.

Allied troops capture Casablanca and Bougie.

German troops invade Corsica.

1943
Auschwitz Kommandant Hass is promoted to chief inspector of concentration camps. The new kommandant, Liebehenschel, then divides up the vast Auschwitz complex of over 30 sub-camps into three main sections.

FDR Secretly Leaves the U.S. on the USS Iowa

American air power continues to hit Rabaul.

Eighth Air Force Heavy Bomber Mission No. 127: 167 aircraft sent to attack the marshalling yard at Munster, 175 to attack Wesel, supported by five pathfinders. Four aircraft lost.

The French arrest the Lebanese President and his cabinet.

1944
The German First Army HQ leaves Metz as the U.S. Third Army gains three bridgeheads over the Moselle.

Private Eddie Slovik is convicted of desertion and sentenced to death for refusing to join his unit in the European Theater of Operations.

The Battle of Batina began in the Croatian village of Batina.

The series of air-sea engagements collectively referred to as the Battle of Ormoc Bay began in the Camotes Sea in the Philippines. The Japanese destroyers Hamanami, Naganami, Shimakaze and Wakatsuki were bombed and sunk along with all 4 Japanese transports in Ormoc Bay, Luzon by U.S. Navy aircraft fro Task Force 38.

Iwo Jima was bombarded by the U.S. Navy.

The last remaining German troops in Greece withdrew from the country.

German submarine U-771 was torpedoed and sunk in Andfjord by British submarine Venturer.

German submarine U-1200 was depth charged and sunk with all hands south of Ireland by British warships.

In Italy, First Brazilian Fighter Group begins operations with US Twelfth Air Force in P-47 Thunderbolts.

RCA Victor and Columbia Records settle with the musicians’ union, allowing recording again after two years of striking.

[BBfanboy]

Zovs: Queen Elizabeth broadcasts a message to the women of the Empire, calling them to join the war effort.

This Queen Elizabeth was the spouse of King George VI, later known as 'the Queen Mother' when Princess Elizabeth ascended to the throne and became the Monarch.

BTW, Ormoc Bay is on Leyte, a little north of Bay-Bay.

[btd64]

Good morning my friends....GP

[btd64]

Next page coming up....GP