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What happened today? Part III

Discussion in 'WWII Today' started by KnightMove, Sep 2, 2004.

  1. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1935 - Italy invades Abyssinia (Ethiopia).
    1941 - World War II: Operation Typhoon - Germany begins an all-out offensive against Moscow.
    1944 - Holocaust: Nazi troops end the Warsaw Uprising.
     
  2. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1942 - Germany tests the first V-2 rocket
     
  3. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1939 - Seekriegsleitung orders full use of arms against armes allied merchant ships.
     
  4. figjam

    figjam Member

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    3rd october - 1944, 101st dig-in on the "island" in holland
     
  5. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1943 - Frankfurt am Main, Offenbach, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, Worms and Saarbrücken are today's RAF targets. Germans finish their retreat from Corsica.

    1944 - Canadian Air Force pilots shoot down the first German Jet fighter over France
     
  6. Erich

    Erich Alte Hase

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    funny the 2nd TAF, 5 pilots claimed the same Me 262...........hhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm odd on 5 October 44
     
  7. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1939 - Hitler offers peace to Western powers under the condition that they should accept status quo. Of course it is not accepted.
     
  8. Mahross

    Mahross Ace

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    1928 - General Chiang Kai-shek becomes President of China.

    1938 - The Grand Fascist Council in Italy passes a variety of anti-Jewish laws to exclude Jews from public activities and cede property to the state. The legislation is condemned by Pope Pius XI.
     
  9. Erich

    Erich Alte Hase

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    6th October 44, the US 385th bomb group's "B" group of 11 B-17's was shot down near Berlin by III./JG 4 and the heavy Sturm Fw's of II.Sturm/JG 4. A terrible blood-letting. The two Luftwaffe units lost 2 Bf 109G's and 11 Fw 190 A-8/R2's

    let us remember the fallen.........

    v/r

    E ~
     
  10. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1900 - Birthday of Heinrich Himmler

    1940 - Germany invades Romania.
    1943 - Japan executes 100 American prisoners on Wake Island.
     
  11. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1939 - World War II: Germany annexes Western Poland.
    1941 - World War II: In their invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol.

    1943 - Spain claims return of the "Blue Division". Volunteers keep fighting on the Eastern Front.
     
  12. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1943 - USAAF bombs Münster, heavily damaging the cathedral.
     
  13. Mahross

    Mahross Ace

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    1942 - In the Battle of Cape Esperance, near the Solomon Islands, U.S. cruisers and destroyers decisively defeat a Japanese task force in a night surface encounter.

    1945 - Negotiations between Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and Communist leader Mao Tse-tung break down. Nationalist and Communist troops are soon engaged in a civil war.
     
  14. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1939 - Manhattan Project: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt is presented with a letter signed by Albert Einstein urging the United States to rapidly develop an atomic bomb program.

    1944 - Red Army continues advance in eastern Prussia, Germans have to evakuate Tauroggen. On behest of Hitler, the governor of Warshaw announces that the town will be flattened.
     
  15. Bill Murray

    Bill Murray Member

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    1943 - Japanese aircraft sink the USS Wahoo in the La Perouse Strait while on her 7th war patrol.
     
  16. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1941 - As the Wehrmacht advances on Moscow, the city is evacuated from women and children.
     
  17. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1943 - World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
     
  18. KnightMove

    KnightMove Ace

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    1939 - U47 sinks Royal Oak in Scapa Flow.

    1944 - Given the choice between a public treason trial and a certain death by firing squad or suicide with honor, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel chooses the latter.
     
  19. Mahross

    Mahross Ace

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    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.
     
  20. Mahross

    Mahross Ace

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    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.
     

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