Sarah Sundin's Blog, page 36

Today in World War II History—November 4, 1939 & 1944

Ad for a 1939 Packard

85 Years Ago—Nov. 4, 1939: US Neutrality Act of 1939 becomes law, repealing the arms embargo in the Neutrality Acts of 1935 & 1937 and renewing the expired “cash & carry” clause to allow the sale of arms to Britain & France.

In Oslo, Norway, an anonymous German scientist (physicist Hans Ferdinand Mayer) gives the “Oslo Report” to British intelligence, outlining German technological advances, such as long-range missiles and advanced navigational methods; the British don’t believe it at first.

In Chicago, Packard exhibits the first air-conditioned automobile.

80 Years Ago—Nov. 4, 1944: The liberation of Greece is complete as final German troops evacuate.

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Today in World War II History—November 3, 1939 & 1944

Japanese Fu-go bomb-carrying balloon reinflated at Moffett Field, CA, after it had been shot down by a US Navy aircraft, 10 January 1945 (US Army photo A 37180C)

85 Years Ago—Nov. 3, 1939: Royal Navy chases Nazi-captured US freighter City of Flint into harbor at Haugesund, Norway, where she is seized by Norwegian sailors.

Movie premiere of John Ford historical drama Drums Along the Mohawk, starring Henry Fonda & Claudette Colbert.

80 Years Ago—Nov. 3, 1944: Canadians clear Breskens Pocket on the Scheldt Estuary in the Netherlands, taking 12,500 POWs.

Japanese begin releasing 9,000 Fu-go bomb-carrying balloons to float to the US (285 will explode in US over the next several months).

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Today in World War II History—November 2, 1944

US soldiers struggling up a hill in the Hürtgen Forest, 1944 (US Army Center of Military History)

80 Years Ago—Nov. 2, 1944: The liberation of Belgium is complete, as Canadians take Zeebrugge.

US First Army begins drive on Schmidt, Germany, through the Hürtgen Forest.

All able-bodied German males ages 13-60 are ordered to join the Volkssturm militia under penalty of court-martial.

Marshal Tito becomes Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, serving in coalition government with government-in-exile prime minister Ivan Šubašić.

Swearing in of members of German Volkssturm, Berlin, 12 November 1944 (German Federal Archives: Bild 146-1971-033-15)

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Today in World War II History—November 1, 1939 & 1944

Heinkel He 178, 1939 (US Air Force photo: 050602-F-1234P-002)

85 Years Ago—Nov. 1, 1939: Aircraft designer Ernst Heinkel demonstrates the first jet aircraft, the He 178, to German military leaders, but they’re not impressed.

John Rockefeller installs ceremonial final rivet in US Rubber Company Building, the last building in Rockefeller Center in New York City.

Flight nurse Lt. Aleda Lutz of 802nd Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron in a C-47 in North Africa, 1943. Lt. Lutz was killed in a plane crash in France Nov. 1, 1944, one of 16 flight nurses killed in service. (US Army Medical Department, Office of Medical History)

80 Years Ago—Nov. 1, 1944: US C-47 medical air evacuation flight crashes in southern France—the crew, 15 patients, and flight nurse Aleda Lutz are killed. (Read more about flight nurses: “Medical Air Evacuation in World War II: The Flight Nurse”).

F-13 reconnaissance plane flies over Tokyo, the first US aircraft over the city since the Doolittle Raid of April 1942.

At Caltech, America’s first rocket research and development center is renamed Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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Today in World War II History—October 31, 1939 & 1944

Poster for the 1939 World’s Fair

85 Years Ago—Oct. 31, 1939: British children are advised not to go “guising” (trick-or-treating) due to the blackout.

New York World’s Fair closes.

80 Years Ago—Oct. 31, 1944: Soviet forces trap German Army Group North in the Courland Peninsula of Lithuania for the rest of the war.

RAF Mosquito bombers destroy Gestapo Headquarters in Aarhus, Denmark, destroying records on the Danish Resistance, freeing two prisoners, and killing 200 Gestapo and 30 Danes, both prisoners and informers.

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Today in World War II History—October 30, 1939 & 1944

Painting: “Go for Broke,” depicting Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team in action in France, October 1944 (US Army Center of Military History)

85 Years Ago—Oct. 30, 1939: German U boat U-56 fails in attack on battleship HMS Nelson with Winston Churchill, Dudley Pound, and Charles Forbes aboard.

Switzerland begins rationing sugar, pasta, rice, wheat, butter, and oil.

80 Years Ago—Oct. 30, 1944: In the Vosges mountains in France, US 442nd Infantry Regiment (Nisei—Japanese-Americans) rescues the Lost Battalion with heavy losses (184 killed).

Aaron Copland/Martha Graham ballet Appalachian Spring premieres, performed in the Library of Congress.

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Today in World War II History—October 29, 1939 & 1944

WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition featuring a Navajo drawing of an antelope hunt (Library of Congress: cph.3b49671)

85 Years Ago—Oct. 29, 1939: Golden Gate International Exposition closes on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay (will re-open 25 May 1940).

80 Years Ago—Oct. 29, 1944: In Aachen, men of the US 1st Infantry Division conduct the first Jewish service in Germany in years, broadcast on NBC radio.

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Today in World War II History—October 28, 1939 & 1944

Heinkel He 111 bomber, September 1940 (German Federal Archives: Bild 101I-343-0694-21 / Schödl)

85 Years Ago—Oct. 28, 1939: A Heinkel He 111 bomber is shot down over Scotland, the first German aircraft shot down over Britain.

80 Years Ago—Oct. 28, 1944: Bulgaria, which had fought with Germany, signs armistice with the Allies.

US B-29 Superfortress bombers fly first mission from the Mariana Islands—to Japanese base at Truk.

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Today in World War II History—October 27, 1939 & 1944

Poster for US Navy Day, 27 Oct 1944

85 Years Ago—Oct. 27, 1939: US consul meets with British at Gibraltar to protest protracted British detention of US merchant ships.

British Achilles tank destroyer crossing the River Savio, Italy, 24 October 1944 (Imperial War Museum: NA 19759)

80 Years Ago—Oct. 27, 1944: In Italy, British Gen. Sir Henry Maitland Wilson orders halt to Allied offensive for the winter due to fatigue, heavy rains, and flooding; US Fifth Army drive halts 9 miles short of Bologna.

Tacloban Airfield opens on Leyte, and the first US aircraft land in the Philippines since 1942.

US celebrates Navy Day.

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Today in World War II History—October 26, 1939 & 1944

American survivors of the Battle of Leyte Gulf rescued by US Navy ship on 26 October 1944 (US National Archives: SC 278010)

85 Years Ago—Oct. 26, 1939: Germany annexes western portions of Poland into the Reich; the rest of German-occupied Poland comes under the “General Government.”

Canadian Royal Hamilton light infantry carriers in Dutch village of Krabbendijke on the Beveland Causeway, 27 Oct 1944 (Library and Archives Canada: PA-205125)

80 Years Ago—Oct. 26, 1944: The Battle of Leyte Gulf concludes with a decisive US victory, despite heavy Japanese kamikaze attacks; this battle marks the virtual collapse of the Japanese Navy.

Canadian troops make an amphibious landing at Beveland in the crucial Scheldt Estuary in the Netherlands.

German 20th Mountain Army begins scorched-earth retreat in Finnmark region of northern Norway; 43,000 will be evicted & evacuated, their homes destroyed.

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