This day in WW II.....

good stuff Jack.
wonder if there is already an existing thread. mr H. may have covered this base.
not sure, not my baby.
cheers.

 

Just pickin' nits...

Sorry Slim, but you are incorrect on that.

The first surface ship losses by the IJN were suffered a day earlier off Luzon, when minesweeper W-10 was strafed by a P-35 and exploded, and minesweeper W-19 was bombed by a B-17.

 

AFAIK, this was the only declaration of war that was ever turned down - that is how laughable it was...

 

I'm going by wiki, so back off man....

 

12 Dec 1944:





The Smoking Snakes of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force assault toward Monte Della Torraccia southwest of Bologna, Italy, as part of the Battle of Monte Castello. Cold weather and determined resistance hampered the attack.

 

13 Dec 41:



• Dutch submarines (Likely HNLMS K XI, K XII, , O 19, and O 20) patrol the South China Sea.

• Hungary declares war on the USA.

• The Battle of Jitra, Malaya, concludes with a withdrawal by allied forces in the face of Japanese armor.

“A difficult, disorganised, and costly withdrawal from Jitra followed . Murray-Lyon's plan was that the division should move to Gurun in two stages, the first of which would be a position on the south bank of the Sungei Kedah, at Alor Star . No transport was available for the troops, so they had to march fifteen miles . The Bata bridge was destroyed at 2 a.m. on the 13th after a Japanese attempt to rush it had been frustrated by 2/2nd Gurkhas, and they withdrew through a rearguard of the 2/9th Gurkhas. However, owing to darkness, breakdowns of communications , and the generally tangled situation, withdrawal orders failed to reach several units, who were thus left stranded in their positions.” — Lionel Wigmore, The Japanese Thrust

 

14 December 1939:




• Vidkun Quisling meets with Germany’s Hitler to discuss a coup of Norway.

 

I've never been a fan of Quisling..... I guess some Norwegians can relate.

Spoiler Alert: the war does not end well for ol' Vidkun. Rumor has it that after the war he was jailed and his Norwegian guards were plotting to kill him.

 

15 December 1941 :




German submarine U-127 was declared operational on 1 November 1941. She departed Kiel on 29 November under the command of Korvettenkapitän Bruno Hansmann. U-127 crossed the North Sea and entered the Atlantic Ocean via the 'gap' between the Faroe and Shetland Islands. She then joined wolfpack Seeräuber on 14 December 1941.

On 15 December, off Cape St Vincent, the HMAS Nestor, Commander Alvord Rosenthal as captain, sighted U-127 on the surface at a distance of about seven miles. Nestor opened fire with her main armament, forcing the U-boat to dive, and, after gaining contact, made a successful attack with depth charges.






HMAS Nestor

 

16 December 1937 :





• Japanese forces are active committing attrocities in Nanjing (Nanking).

“The slaughter of civilians is appalling. I could go on for pages telling of cases of rape and brutality almost beyond belief. Two bayoneted corpses are the only survivors of seven street cleaners who were sitting in their headquarters when Japanese soldiers came in without warning or reason and killed five of their number and wounded the two that found their way to the hospital.” — Letter by Dr. Robert Wilson, 15 December 1937​

• The USS Panay had been evacuating Americans from Nanjing, via the Yangtze river, when she was attacked with machine gun fire and aerial bombing from Japanese Navy aircraft on 12 December.



USS Panay under attack, 12 Dec 1937

“Several small boats from the Panay carried the crew to the river bank. Three men aboard died and 27 were injured. The survivors watched their ship sink.

The sinking was especially shocking because the public could see pictures of the incident and because the United States was a neutral country.

For years, people wondered if the attack was a mistake. Perhaps the Japanese thought the Panay was a Chinese boat. But Huffman and Spark say that's not likely.

"They had American flags all over the ship — all over the top of the ship," Huffman says.

Spark adds, "Any aircraft flying over should be able to see these flags and understand this is an American vessel.”

So why did the Japanese attack? Spark says the chaos in Nanking created an opportunity for renegade factions within the Japanese army who wanted the United States and China to "get into an active conflict so that the Japanese could once and for all drive the United States out of China."” — Ted Robbins, NPR​

• Immediately after the attack, survivors declared that the attack was clearly intentional. The Japanese Army had been informed of the presence and mission of the Panay, and the Panay had been clearly marked as a US ship.

“Shanghai, Dec. 16 (U.P.) — Rear Admiral Teizo Mitsunami, chief of the aerial operations of the Japanese forces in China, was ordered home today in Japan's first move to make reparation for her aviators’ attack on the United States gunboat Panay and three Standard Oil steamships. Admiral Mitsunami was ordered to return to Tokio [sic] at once, and it was understood on his arrival he would be removed formally from his post, one of the most important in the Japanese military setup. The recall of the admiral was frankly described as a move, the first, in pursuance of the Japanese pledge to the United States to punish the men responsible for the attack.”​

 

Lovely photo! The N class destroyers were repeats of the J/K design. The L and M classes were of similar layout but larger, with more powerful 4.7" guns in new, enclosed, power-operated mountings which took longer to design and manufacture than anticipated. With hostilities imminent, the navy ordered an additional flotilla (8 ships) of the J/K design, and all of the Ns were completed before the last of the L/Ms. Four of them were manned by the RAN, two by the Dutch, and one by the Poles, leaving only one in RN service.

Note that the aft (X) mounting faces forward. This type mounting could train 170 degrees in either direction, leaving a blind arc of 20 degrees astern. Later the X mounts were modified to stow facing aft, eliminating the blind arc.

Atop the bridge are the Director Control Tower and the separate Range Finder Director. The RFD also served to control the main armament in AA fire; AA fire was limited by the maximum elevation of the guns, 40 degrees.

The after set of torpedo tubes have been replaced by a 4" anti-aircraft gun, but AFAIK this was not linked to the RFD and could only put up a barrage against attacking aircraft. In time the gun was removed and the torpedo tubes restored.

 

Japanese forces occupied Miri, Malaysia in 1941.

Read all about it:

Japanese occupation of British Borneo - Wikipedia

 

December 16, 1944 - German attack starts the Battle of the Bulge.

 

LOL!

 

Our local paper featured a story today of a few local boys who got caught up in the WW II Battle of the Bulge with the 9th Armored Division.

 

For the sake of historical accuracy, only one ship, the Toro Maru, was actually sunk by a submarine on this date. She sank so slowly that her cargo was mostly saved.

Another, the Awazisan/Awajisan(depending on translation) Maru had been bombed, on December 8, and was abandoned & left afire to her fate - the K-XII apparently came across the drifting hulk and sank it - not knowing it had already been abandoned. The other ships sunk were done so in shallow water and were later salvaged & returned to service. The number killed was quite small and nowhere near the 4,000 claimed.