8 October 1943.

U 643. (Type VIIC)

Attacked with depth-charges by Liberator T/120 (F/O. D. Webber) and Liberator Z/86 (F/O. C. Burcher, DFC) and sunk in position 5614N/2655W with the loss of 30 crew. 21 crewmen were rescued by HM destroyer ORWELL and made PoW.

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1944 : Churchill and Stalin confer

On this day in 1944, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin begin a nine-day conference in Moscow, during which the war with Germany and the future of Europe are discussed.

Germany's defeat now seemed inevitable, and Stalin was prepared to commit the USSR to intervening in the war against Japan once Germany had formally surrendered. This optimistic outlook enabled a significant portion of the talks to center on the relative spheres of influence of the two superpowers in a postwar European environment. Churchill ceded the disposition of Romania, which Stalin's troops were liberating from German control even as the conference commenced, to the Soviet Union. But the British prime minister was keen on keeping the Red Army away from Greece. "Britain must be the leading Mediterranean power." They made a deal: Romania for Greece.

Churchill was more accommodating elsewhere, willing to divvy up the spoils of war. Yugoslavia could be cut down the middle, east for Russia, west for the West. Churchill also laid out a plan by which the German populations of East Prussia and Silesia would be moved into the interior of Germany, with East Prussia split between the USSR and Poland, and Silesia handed over to Poland as compensation for territories Stalin already occupied and intended to keep.

But Churchill was insistent on one issue that would be harder to negotiate in 50-50 terms-freedom. Churchill wanted every nation to be free to select the government most amenable to its people, especially smaller, more vulnerable nations. "Let them work out their own fortunes during the years that lie ahead." Churchill was frank about the West's fear of expansionist communism. But none of what was discussed was carved in stone or even put on paper--a fact that would be all too obvious as the Cold War commenced.

1944 : Eight hundred children are gassed to death at Auschwitz

On this day in 1944, 800 Gypsy children, including more than a hundred boys between 9 and 14 years old are systematically murdered.

Auschwitz was really a group of camps, designated I, II, and III. There were also 40 smaller "satellite" camps. It was at Auschwitz II, at Birkenau, established in October 1941, that the SS created a complex, monstrously orchestrated killing ground: 300 prison barracks; four "bathhouses," in which prisoners were gassed; corpse cellars; and cremating ovens. Thousands of prisoners were also used as fodder for medical experiments, overseen and performed by the camp doctor, Josef Mengele ("the Angel of Death").

A mini-revolt took place on October 7, 1944. As several hundred Jewish prisoners were being forced to carry corpses from the gas chambers to the furnace to dispose of the bodies, they blew up one of the gas chambers and set fire to another, using explosives smuggled to them from Jewish women who worked in a nearby armaments factory. Of the roughly 450 prisoners involved in the sabotage, about 250 managed to escape the camp during the ensuing chaos. They were all found and shot. Those co-conspirators who never made it out of the camp were also executed, as were five women from the armaments factory-but not before being tortured for detailed information on the smuggling operation. None of the women talked.

Gypsies, too, had been singled out for brutal treatment by Hitler's regime early on. Deemed "carriers of disease" and "unreliable elements who cannot be put to useful work," they were marked for extermination along with the Jews of Europe from the earliest years of the war. Approximately 1.5 million Gypsies were murdered by the Nazis. In 1950, as Gypsies attempted to gain compensation for their suffering, as were other victims of the Holocaust, the German government denied them anything, saying, "Gypsies have been persecuted under the Nazis not for any racial reason but because of an asocial and criminal record." They were stigmatized even in light of the atrocities committed against them.

October 11, 1942

United States defeats Japanese in the Battle of Cape Esperance
On this day in 1942, the American Navy intercepts a Japanese fleet of ships on their way to reinforce troops at Guadalcanal. The Navy succeeded in its operation, sinking a majority of the ships.

The battle for Guadalcanal began in August, when the Marines landed in the first American offensive of the war. The ground fighting saw U.S. troops gain a decisive edge, wiping out detachments and regiments in brutal combat. The most effective Japanese counterstrikes came from the air and sea, with bombing raids harassing the Marines and threatening their dwindling supplies. But before the Japanese could reinforce their own ground troops, the Navy went to work.

The battle of Cape Esperance, on the northwest coast of Guadalcanal Island, commenced at night between surface ships; all Japanese reinforcements came at night, an operation nicknamed the Tokyo Express. The Navy sank one Japanese cruiser, the Furutaka, and three destroyers, while losing only one of their own destroyers. In characteristic fashion, those Japanese sailors who found themselves floundering in the water refused rescue by Americans; they preferred to be devoured by the sharks as a fate less shameful than capture.

Unfortunately, the loss of American manpower was greater than that of hardware: 48 sailors from the American destroyer Duncan were the victims of crossfire between the belligerents, and more than a hundred others died when an American cruiser turned on a searchlight to better target a Japanese ship. It also had the unintended effect of illuminating the sailors of the cruiser, making them easy targets.

The American Navy continued to harass Japanese ships trying to reinforce the Japanese position on the island; relatively few Japanese troops made it ashore. By the end of 1942, the Japanese were ready to evacuate the island--in defeat.

October 12, 1946

Gen. Joseph Stilwell dies
On this day in 1946, Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, the man who commanded the U.S. and Chinese Nationalist resistance to Japanese incursions into China and Burma, dies today at age 63.

Born March 19, 1883, in Palatka, Florida, and a graduate of the West Point Military Academy, Stilwell began distinguishing himself early in his career. In World War I, he served with the American Expeditionary Force in Europe, as well as in the Philippines. He was also a student of the Chinese language, which garnered him a position as military attache in Peking from 1935 to 1939. It was during the 1930s that Stilwell began to bond with the Chinese peasantry--and developed an infamous distrust, if not contempt, for Chinese political leadership. Known for his straight-talking manner and as a man who did not suffer fools gladly, he made no qualms about his dislike for Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, who Stilwell considered corrupt and greedy (and whom he nicknamed "the Peanut").

Nevertheless, when World War II broke out, Stilwell reluctantly accepted Chiang's offer to become commander of U.S. Army forces in China and Burma-as well as to become Chiang's chief of staff. Stilwell also supervised the dispersion of American Land-Lease shipments to China, much-needed supplies for the war effort that Chiang wanted funneled through his office.

Stilwell's initial military operation, to keep open the Burma Road between India and China and to repel Japanese incursions into Burma, failed. The operation in Burma was so disastrous that Chinese forces under his command stopped taking orders. And as Allied supplies to China were being strangled (the Burma Road was the necessary shipping route), Stilwell and his forces were forced to retreat into India. "We got run out of Burma, and it is humiliating as hell," the general later admitted.

Further attempts by Stilwell to rally Chinese forces against the Japanese in both Burma and China were often thwarted by both Chiang, who was more concerned about the communist threat of Mao Tse-tung, and not allowing his ultimate authority to be usurped by the Americans, and the American Air Force, which, naturally, wanted to divert the war effort from the ground to the air.

Stilwell did manage to lead Chinese divisions to retake Myitakyina, and its airfield, from Japanese control, rebuilding the Ledo Road, a military highway in India that led into Burma (the road was later renamed Stilwell Road). But conflicts with Chiang resulted in Stilwell's removal in 1944. He then served as commander of the 10th Army on Okinawa, ultimately receiving the surrender of 100,000 Japanese troops in the Ryukyu Islands, in southern Japan. Stilwell finished off his career as commander of the 6th Army. The man who Gen. George C. Marshall declared "far-sighted" and "one of the exceptionally brilliant and cultured men in the Army...qualified for any command in peace or war," died in San Francisco--with his nation at peace.

October 13, 1943

Italy declares war on Germany
On this day in 1943, the government of Italy declares war on its former Axis partner Germany and joins the battle on the side of the Allies.

With Mussolini deposed from power and the collapse of the fascist government in July, Gen. Pietro Badoglio, Mussolini's former chief of staff and the man who had assumed power in the Duce's stead by request of King Victor Emanuel, began negotiating with General Eisenhower regarding a conditional surrender of Italy to the Allies. It became a fact on September 8, with the new Italian government allowing the Allies to land in Salerno, in southern Italy, in its quest to beat the Germans back up the peninsula.

The Germans too snapped into action. Ever since Mussolini began to falter, Hitler had been making plans to invade Italy to keep the Allies from gaining a foothold that would situate them within easy reach of the German-occupied Balkans. On the day of Italy's surrender, Hitler launched Operation Axis, the occupation of Italy. As German troops entered Rome, General Badoglio and the royal family fled to Brindisi, in southeastern Italy, to set up a new antifascist government.

On October 13, Badoglio set into motion the next stage of his agreement with Eisenhower, the full cooperation of Italian troops in the Allied operation to capture Rome from the Germans. It was extremely slow going, described by one British general as "slogging up Italy." Bad weather, the miscalculation of starting the operation from so far south in the peninsula, and the practice of "consolidation," establishing a firm base of operations and conjoining divisions every time a new region was captured, made the race for Rome more of a crawl. But when it was over, and Rome was once again free, General Badoglio would take yet one more step in freeing Italy from its fascist past-he would step down from office.

October 14, 1944

"The Desert Fox" commits suicide
On this day in 1944, German Gen. Erwin Rommel, nicknamed "the Desert Fox," is given the option of facing a public trial for treason, as a co-conspirator in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, or taking cyanide. He chooses the latter.

Rommel was born in 1891 in Wurttenberg, Germany, the son of a teacher. Although not descended from military men, the newly unified German empire made it fashionable to choose a military career, which young Rommel did, becoming an officer cadet. During World War I, he showed himself to be a natural leader with unnatural courage, fighting in France, Romania, and Italy. Following the war, he pursued a teaching career in German military academies, writing a textbook, Infantry Attacks, that was well regarded.

At the outbreak of World War II, Rommel was given command of the troops that guarded Hitler's headquarters, a disappointment for a man used to fighting on the front lines with the infantry. But in early 1940, he was given his chance to put to use his gifts, when he was given command of the 7th Panzer Division. Although a novice as far as mechanized forces were concerned, he soon mastered the advantages and proved his leadership abilities again in the German offensive against the French channel coast in May.

In early 1941, Rommel was given control of the troops sent to North Africa to aid Germany's ailing ally, Italy, in maintaining its position in Libya. It is here, in the deserts of North Africa, that Rommel earned his vaunted reputation, as well as his nickname (he became known for his "fox-like" sneak attacks). Winning significant victories against the British, whom he begrudgingly admired, Rommel nevertheless became weary of this theater of operations; he wanted to go back to Europe. It wasn't until a second battle to take el-Alamein in Egypt went against him that the "invincible" general was finally called home back to Europe.

Hitler put Rommel back in northern France, to guard against an Allied invasion. Rommel's suggestions for the precautions necessary to repel an enemy invasion were not heeded, and he began to lose confidence in Hitler and Germany's ability to win the war. When Rommel was approached by friends to agree to head the German government in the event of Hitler's overthrow, he agreed-although there was no explicit talk of assassination, which he found abhorrent.

D-Day was launched, and Rommel's prediction of disaster for Germany's position played itself out. Still, Hitler would not consider negotiations with the Allies. Rommel ended up in the hospital after his car was attacked by British bombers and he was forced off the road. Meanwhile, details of the failed assassination plot had come to Hitler's attention, including Rommel's contact with the conspirators. As Rommel was convalescing in his home at Herrlingen, two generals visited and offered him his choice-trial or suicide. Rommel told his wife and son what had transpired, and that he had chosen to take the cyanide capsules the generals had provided.

The German government gave Rommel a state funeral. His death was attributed to war wounds.

SS CARIBOU (October 14, 1942) 2,222 ton passenger ferry of the Newfoundland Railways, built in Rotterdam. Launched on June 9, 1925 and destined for service in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland. While sailing through the Cabot Strait between St. John's and Port aux Basques on October 14, 1942, escorted by the minesweeper HMCS Grand-Mére, the ferry was blown apart at 3.20am by a torpedo from the German submarine U-69. The Caribou was carrying 251 crew and passengers of whom 118 were military personnel. Also on board were fifty head of cattle. The fact that the defenceless ferry was carrying military personnel and escorted by a warship made this a legitimate target for the U-boat. The sinking took the lives of 136 persons including 16 women and 14 children. There were 115 survivors, 104 being rescued by the minesweeper. Two of the survivors died en route to hospital in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Among those lost was naval nurse Margaret Wilson, the only Canadian nurse killed in WWII through enemy action. Of the crew of forty six, thirty one lost their lives. Six soldiers of the Prince Edward Island Highlanders also died. Of the fourteen children on board only one survived.

The U-69 (Kptlt. Urlich Gräf) was sunk east of Newfoundland on February 17, 1943, by depth charges from the British destroyer HMS Fame. All hands (46) perished.

KOMET (October 14, 1942)

German commerce raider (3,287 tons) escorted by four Motor Torpedo Boats and some minesweepers was bound for the North Atlantic. The British Admiralty, knowing that an attempt was being made to send the Komet to sea, had stationed a strong force of craft in the English Channel to intercept her. In the short action which followed, the Komet was set on fire and shortly after, blew up, killing all 351 of her crew. Two of the torpedo boats and one minesweeper were also sunk.

October 15, 1946

Herman Goering dies
On this day in 1946, Herman Goering, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe, president of the Reichstag, head of the Gestapo, prime minister of Prussia, chief forester of the Reich, chief liquidator of sequestered estates, supreme head of the National Weather Bureau, and Hitler's designated successor dies by his own hand.

Goering was an early member of the Nazi Party and was wounded in the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. That wound would have long-term effects, as Goering became increasingly addicted to painkillers. Not long after Hitler's accession to power, Goering was instrumental in creating concentration camps for political enemies. Ostentatious and self-indulgent, he changed his uniform five times a day and was notorious for flaunting his decorations, jewelry, and stolen artwork. It was Goering who ordered the purging of German Jews from the economy following the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, initiating an "Aryanization" policy that confiscated Jewish property and businesses.

Goering's failure to win the Battle of Britain and prevent the Allied bombing of Germany led to his loss of stature within the Party, aggravated by the low esteem with which he was always held by fellow officers because of his egocentrism and position as Hitler's right-hand man. As the war progressed, he dropped into depressions and continued to battle drug addiction.

When Goering fell into U.S. hands after Germany's surrender, he had in his possession a rich stash of paracodin pills, a morphine derivative. He was tried at Nuremberg and charged with various crimes against humanity. Despite a vigorous attempt at self-acquittal, he was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but before he could be executed, he committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide tablet he had hidden from his guards.

October 16, 1946

Alfred Rosenberg is executed
On this day in 1946, Alfred Rosenberg, the primary fabricator and disseminator of Nazi ideology, is hanged as a war criminal.

Born in Estonia in 1893, Rosenberg studied architecture at the University of Moscow. After receiving his degree, he stayed in Russia through the early days of the Russian Revolution and may have even flirted with communism briefly. In 1919, he immigrated to Munich, and met up with Dietrich Eckart, the poet-turned-editor of the Voelkischer Beobachter, the propagandistic newspaper of the Nazi Party. Through Eckart, Rosenberg met Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Hess and joined the newly formed Nazi Party. Hitler replaced Eckart with Rosenberg as editor of the paper, so impressed was Hitler with the "intellectual" architect.

Rosenberg immediately began using the news organ to disseminate his racist philosophy, now also the official Nazi philosophy, which was cobbled together from the writings of two men extremely influential on Germany's growing anti-Semitism, racism, and grandiose self-perception: Houston Stewart Chamberlain, an Englishman, and Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, a French diplomat, both of whom believed that the Aryan Germans were destined to be the masters of Europe.

When the 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch collapsed, and Hitler was thrown in jail, he turned the reins of the party over to Rosenberg, whom Hitler believed would prove feckless as a leader and thus no ultimate threat to his own authority. And there was nothing to fear-for the Nazi Party would be banned and dismissed as a laughingstock until Hitler took control again upon his release.

Rosenberg's literary output continued as the Nazis fought for legitimacy and power. The Future Direction of a German Foreign Policy argued for the invasion and occupation of Poland and the Soviet Union. The Myth of the 20th Century laid out the convoluted notions of Nordic racial superiority once again, also describing in no uncertain terms who the enemies of a German-Nazi Europe were: "Russian Tartars" (that is, Slavs), and Semites, which included not merely Jews but all the Latin ethnic groups--as well as Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church. This "blueprint" for a "natural right" of conquest fueled Hitler's already violent prejudices and megalomaniac character.

Rosenberg's roles during the war included working, from his Office of Foreign Affairs, with Norwegian fascist Vidkun Quisling in the overthrow of Norway's government. Rosenberg was also responsible for overseeing the transportation of stolen artworks from Vichy France to Germany.

At the Nuremberg trials, Rosenberg was found guilty of war crimes and ordered hanged.

October 17, 1941

Konoye government falls
On this day in 1941, the government of Prince Fumimaro Konoye, prime minister of Japan, collapses, leaving little hope for peace in the Pacific.

Konoye, a lawyer by training and well studied in Western philosophy, literature, and economics, entered the Japanese Parliament's upper house by virtue of his princely status and immediately pursued a program of reform. High on his agenda was a reform of the army general staff in order to prevent its direct interference in foreign policy decisions. He also sought an increase in parliamentary power. An antifascist, Konoye championed an end to the militarism of Japanese political structures, especially in light of the war in Manchuria, which began in 1931.

Appointed prime minister in 1933, Konoye's first cabinet fell after full-blown war broke out between Japan and China. In 1940, Konoye was asked to form a second cabinet. But as he sought to contain the war with China, relations with the United States deteriorated, to the point where Japan was virtually surrounded by a U.S. military presence and threats of sanctions. On August 27, 1941, Konoye requested a summit with President Roosevelt

in order to diminish heightening tensions. Envoys were exchanged, but no direct meeting with the president took place. (The U.S. government believed it could send the wrong message to China-and that Japan was on the losing end of that war anyway.)

In October, Konoye resigned because of increasing tension with his army minister, Tojo Hideki. Tojo succeeded Konoye as prime minister, holding on to his offices of army minister and war minister. Imperial Japan's foreign policy was now formally controlled by the military. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Konoye was put under military surveillance, his political career all but over until 1945, when the emperor considered sending him to Moscow to negotiate peace terms. That meeting never came off.

When Saipan fell to the U.S. Marines and Army, Tojo's government collapsed. Upon Japan's surrender, Tojo shot himself to prevent being taken prisoner by the United States. He lived and was tried by an international war-crimes tribunal--and hanged on December 22, 1948. As for Konoye, the grand irony of his career came when he was served with an arrest warrant by the U.S. occupying force for suspicion of war crimes. Rather than submit to arrest, he committed suicide by drinking poison.

October 18, 1942

Vice Admiral Halsey named new commander of the South Pacific
On this day in 1942, Vice. Adm. William F. Halsey replaces Vice Adm. Robert L. Ghormley as commander, South Pacific.

The man nicknamed "Bull" by the press began his military career as a destroyer commander during World War I. Halsey was made a captain at the age of 53, earned his naval aviator's wings, and was promoted to vice admiral in 1940. But it was the bombing of Pearl Harbor that would mark out his future for him. Halsey's task force was one of the few functioning battle groups left after the destruction of so much of the American fleet, placing him in the position of making the unpredictable and aggressive strategic decisions for which he would become renowned.

In 1942, he led surprise attacks on the Marshall and Gilbert Islands and supported the American reinforcement of troops on Samoa. It was his task force (a temporary organization of a fleet for a specific operation) that carried the 16 B-25 bombers for Jimmy Doolittle's raid on Tokyo in April 1942. By this time, Halsey's reputation for being where the action was had made him arguably the most famous American admiral of the war. And so it is ironic that he missed two major Naval engagements: the Battle of the Coral Sea (his fleet was not strategically positioned to participate) and the Battle of Midway (a severe case of dermatitis put him out of commission).

But by October 1942, Halsey was back just in time to be appointed commander of South Pacific operations by Admiral Nimitz, who wanted Vice Admiral Ghormley replaced. (Ghormley had suffered several defeats militarily and severe cases of indecision and anxiety personally.) Brilliant work in the capture of the Solomon Islands and New Guineas led to Halsey's promotion to full admiral. His career continued to strike awe in his admirers and terror in his enemies, as he succeeded in destroying the Japanese fleet in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, and commanding U.S. forces in the operations that led to the capture of Okinawa and the surrender of the Japanese there.

OCTOBER 18

1812 - U.S. sloop of war Wasp captures HM brig Frolic.

There have been several U.S. warships named Wasp, the most well-known being the aircraft carriers, one of which was lost in WWII.

JT

October 19, 1943

Chinese and Suluks revolt against Japanese in North Borneo
On this day in 1943, local Chinese and native Suluks rise up against the Japanese occupation of North Borneo. The revolt, staged in the capital, Jesselton, resulted in the deaths of 40 Japanese soldiers.

The Japanese had begun scooping up islands in the Dutch East Indies in late 1941. Kuching, on the northern coast of Borneo, was taken in December; January of '42 saw the fall of Brunei Bay and Jesselton, also in North Borneo. The British and Dutch forces on the islands were dealt swift and severe blows. Attempts by the Allies to hold on to other islands in the region--Malaya, Sumatra, and Java--began shortly thereafter, with British General Archibald Wavell commanding a unified force of British, Dutch, and Australian soldiers. It was a disastrous failure.

The treatment of Allied and civilian prisoners in the Japanese-controlled islands was horrendous, with hundreds dying of disease and starvation. The rebellion of Chinese settlers and native Suluks in the Borneo capital of Jesselton, although delivering a blow to the Japanese to the tune of 40 dead occupying soldiers, was dealt with quickly and brutally. The Japanese destroyed dozens of Suluk villages, rounded up and tortured thousands of civilians, and executed almost 200 without trial. In one extreme example of cruelty, several dozen Suluk women and children had their hands tied behind them and were hanged from their wrists from a pillar of a mosque. They were then shot down by machine-gun fire.

North Borneo would not be liberated until 1945, mostly the work of Australian forces. The next year, it would be made a colony of Britain. That region of Borneo controlled by the Dutch was given sovereignty in 1949 after a rebellion by Indonesian forces.

October 20, 1944

U.S. forces land at Leyte Island in the Philippines
On this day in 1944, more than 100,000 American soldiers land on Leyte Island, in the Philippines, as preparation for the major invasion by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The ensuing battles of Leyte Island proved among the bloodiest of the war in the Pacific and signaled the beginning of the end for the Japanese.

The Japanese had held the Philippines since May 1942, when the awful defeat of American forces led to General MacArthur's departure and General Wainwright's capture. MacArthur was back, as he promised, but his invasion of Luzon required a softening up of the enemy. Thus, the amphibious landing of the American forces at Leyte and the concomitant goal of destroying the Japanese fleet in the gulf was undertaken.

The Japanese anticipated the American landing by launching Operation Sho-Go, an attempt to divert the U.S. 3rd Fleet north and away from the fighting on the island. The Japanese fleet assembled was the largest ocean task force assembled during the war, including seven battleships, 11 heavy cruisers, and 19 destroyers. American submarines and aircraft carriers met the Japanese fleet and the Battle of Leyte Gulf began on October 23.

Meanwhile on Leyte Island, the American troops took on the Japanese garrison, which was composed of 80,000 soldiers. It took 67 days to subdue the island, with extraordinary acts of physical bravery and courage demonstrated on both sides. Even after the Americans had taken control of the island, Japanese soldiers who had been hidden away continued to emerge and fight on, preferring to die than surrender. All told, the Japanese lost more than 55,000 soldiers during the two months of battle and approximately another 25,000 in mopping up operations in early 1945. The U.S. forces lost about 3,500-compared with the Japanese loss of 80,000 total.

The sea battle of Leyte Gulf was the same story. The loss of ships and sailors was horrendous for both sides. The sinking of the American carrier Princeton resulted in the drowning deaths of 500 men. When the Japanese battleship Musashi was destroyed by a massive American aerial attack, more than 1,000 sailors died, including the captain who stood on his bridge and literally went down with his ship. Three days of sea battle saw the destruction of 36 Japanese warships-compared with America's three. It also saw the introduction of the Japanese kamikaze-"divine wind"--suicide bombers. The St. Lo, an American aircraft carrier, was one of the first casualties, when one kamikaze pilot drove his plane straight into its flight deck.

More than 5,000 kamikaze pilots died in this gulf battle-taking down 34 ships. But when all was said and done, the Japanese had not been able to prevent the loss of their biggest and best warships, signaling the virtual end of the Japanese Imperial Fleet. The American victory on land and sea opened the door for General MacArthur's invasion and the recapture of the Philippines.

October 21, 1941

Germans massacre men, women, and children in Yugoslavia
On this day in 1941, German soldiers go on a rampage, killing thousands of Yugoslavian civilians, including whole classes of schoolboys.

Despite attempts to maintain neutrality at the outbreak of World War II, Yugoslavia finally succumbed to signing a "friendship treaty" with Germany in late 1940, finally joining the Tripartite "Axis" Pact in March 1941. The masses of Yugoslavians protested this alliance, and shortly thereafter the regents who had been trying to hold a fragile confederacy of ethnic groups and regions together since the creation of Yugoslavia at the close of World War I fell to a coup, and the Serb army placed Prince Peter into power. The prince-now the king--rejected the alliance with Germany-and the Germans retaliated with the Luftwaffe bombing of Belgrade, killing about 17,000 people.

With Yugoslavian resistance collapsing, King Peter removed to London, setting up a government-in-exile. Hitler then began to carve up Yugoslavia into puppet states, primarily divided along ethnic lines, hoping to win the loyalty of some-such as the Croats-with the promise of a postwar independent state. (In fact, many Croats did fight alongside the Germans in its battle against the Soviet Union.) H