Posted on 12/20/2011 4:48:42 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/dec41/f20dec41.htm
Red Army pushes Germans back
Saturday, December 20, 1941 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... Around Moscow, Soviet advances continue. To the northwest, Volokolamsk is recaptured.
In Hong Kong... Counterattacks by the small British and Canadian garrison against the Japanese landing forces fail with heavy losses.
From Washington... Admiral King is appoint Commander in Chief, US Fleet.
From Germany... Goebbels broadcasts an appeal for contributions of warm, winter clothing for German troops on the Eastern Front.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/20.htm
December 20th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: A renewed appeal for salvaged waste paper was made yesterday by Sir Charles Portal, the chief of the air staff in a broadcast. “You have all got munitions of war in your homes,” he told people. Old magazines and newspapers, Christmas cards and decorations, food cartons and cigarette packets are all needed to make parts of shell cases, mines, machine-gun bullets and radio sets for tanks and aircraft.
Scrap metal is also urgently required, although 5,000 tons of iron railings have already been collected. Some people have put up stiff resistance to the removal of their railings. Some have connected them to the mains electricity. One man even drew a revolver and warned that if anyone touched his railings he would fire.
Minesweeping trawler HMS Rousay launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: An appeal for winter clothing, intended for German troops on the Eastern Front, is broadcast by Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Göbbels.
He made no admission that Hitler had expected Russia to crumble to defeat before the snows came in and had therefore not issued winter kit to the army. Instead, he insisted that winter had come early and was more than normally severe.
The authorities had done everything possible to provide ample equipment”, he said, “using the last available transport to send enormous quantities of equipment even to the front line. But despite all these preparations the troops still needed a lot more things.”
He added: “Those at home will not deserve a single peaceful hour if even one soldier is exposed to the rigours of winter without adequate clothing.”
Göbbels’s appeal is widely discussed in the German press today. One newspaper says: “The strict clothes rationing of the past few years has not made it possible for us to have any clothing to spare. We have no surplus and we must therefore give away what we ourselves need. We must expect to shiver because of the soldiers’ needs.” The Nazi Party newspaper Volkischer Beobachter argues: “Hitler does not make it easy for us; but we do not ask why you should surrender what you so badly need yourself. Be grateful you are not at Smolensk, Minsk or Vyazma.”
All this does little for the German soldier in those places. Propaganda pictures show him healthy and smiling in a steam bath. The reality is that he is infested with lice because it is too cold for him to wash. Sentries who fall asleep freeze to death. The roads are littered with frozen horses.
In order to try to correct this shambles brought about by Hitler’s overweening confidence, the Germans have placed huge orders for wooden huts, fur-lined overcoats, skis and snow-shoes.
Skis, sweaters and blankets have been seized in Norway, and the Baltic states. Soon a soldier somewhere in Russia’s frozen wastes will be wearing a fur coat that once belonged to a Berlin Hausfrau.
U-90, U-356, U-439, U-512 commissioned.
U-463, U-464 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.S.R.: The Soviet winter offensive continues to advance retaking Volokolamsk to the northwest of Moscow.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Destroyer HMS KANDAHAR, which had been attempting to rescue the crew of HMS Neptune (see 19 December) strikes a mine and sinks the following day in the same position as Neptune. The 174 survivors are taken on board HMS Jaguar, which then sinks the hull of Kandahar. (Alex Gordon)(108)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: The Japanese 56th Division lands on Mindanao near Davao during the night.
This is the more southerly of the Philippines two largest islands. The next stage of Japan’s pincer attack on the US territory has begun. The Japanese have moved swiftly since they landed on the islands on 10 December. By 14 December around 6,500 troops had disembarked on the northern island of Luzon, the largest of the Philippines.
But as the imperial army has advanced the beleaguered US defenders have put up a brave fight. On 14 December the Japanese took Tuguegarao in northern Luzon, and US bombers attacked their troop convoys. One pilot, Captain Hewitt T Wheless, was delayed by engine trouble and reached his target only after the other bombers had gone. Suddenly 18 Japanese fighters descended on him like a swarm of wasps, but he dropped his bombs and headed home, pursued by fighters for 75 miles. His radio operator died and a gunner was wounded, but he made it, downing, so it is said, 11 fighters on the way.
SINGAPORE: The authorities here have made an urgent request to London for more troops and aircraft to counter the growing threat of a Japanese invasion. In north-west Malaya, British troops yesterday abandoned the island of Penang following the loss days before of the state of Kedah and the province of Wellesley. Penang’s mainland neighbour, the tin-mining state of Perak, is under attack as the Japanese move south. In Wellesley the Japanese captured Butterworth airfield, 360 miles from Singapore, giving them control of five of Malaya’s 11 airfields. British troops are being pulled back to the river Krian, thought to provide better defences. Further south at Port Swettenham, a 6pm curfew has been imposed.
WAKE ISLAND “The Japanese are occupying all the islands,” Hitler declared two days ago. “They will get Australia. The white race will disappear from those regions.” He has mixed feelings about his ally’s success.
One island Japan has so far failed to occupy is Wake, a treeless atoll halfway between Manila and Pearl Harbor, defended by 400 US marines, 1,000 construction workers, a dozen planes and six 5-inch guns. The Japanese fleet arrived off Wake on 11 December, after three days of bombing. Major Devereux, the marine commander, waited until the ships were in range of his guns, the fired. Two destroyers were sunk and a cruiser damaged. The defenders fight on.
CHINA: The 1st and 2nd Squadrons from the Flying Tigers of The American Volunteer Group had their first air combat, shooting down 3 Japanese bombers plus 2 unconfirmed. (Chuck Baisden)
CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Kenora launched.
Patrol vessel HMCS Adversus ran aground in blizzard McNutt’s Island, Nova Scotia. All 16 crewmembers recovered. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: Admiral Ernest J. King is appointed as Commander in Chief of the US Fleet.
The previous Commander in Chief of the US Fleet, Admiral J.O. Richardson, sported the acronym CINCUS. Admiral King didn’t like the sound of this under the circumstances of Dec. 7, and declared himself COMINCH, which slightly annoyed FDR because that was rightly his acronym. But he let it go. (Matt Clark)
“Elmer’s Tune” by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra with vocals by Ray Eberle and The Modernaires reaches Number 1 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in the U.S. This song, which debuted on the charts on 8 November 1941, was charted for 15 weeks, was Number 1 for 1 week and was ranked Number 8 for the year 1941. (Jack McKillop)
Destroyers USS Beatty and Tillman launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
NICARAGUA declares war on Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria. (Dave Shirlaw)
COLOMBIA: Bogota breaks off diplomatic relations with Berlin. (Mike Yared)
I asked the mods to stick the date at the end of the thread title. Don’t want to suggest that the Japanese are attacking in the Philippines or that the British are still in Hong Kong in 2011.
Sergeant Gander.
Gander, the Newfoundland Dog, who won the Dickin Medal
Gander was a Newfoundland dog, first owned as a pet and named Pal. He accidentally scratched a child’s face and the owner gave him to the Royal Rifles, a regiment of the Canadian Army stationed at Gander International Airport, in Newfoundland.
The soldiers renamed the dog after the airport and made him a sergeant in their regiment. When the unit went to Hong Kong in 1941, the newfie accompanied them.
The Battle of Hong Kong began in December 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The dog helped fight the Japanese in three battles.
Gander joined his comrades in the fight, relying on his own best weapons: his size and a strong set of teeth. Despite the ferocity of the fire fight surrounding him, Gander charged at the invaders, running this way and that, snarling and rearing up on his hind legs. Rifleman Reginald Law recalls, “Gander appeared to hate the Japanese on sight. He growled and ran at the enemy soldiers, biting at their heels. And what amazed us all was that they did not shoot him then and there.”
The heroic dog picked up a thrown Japanese grenade and rushed it toward the enemy, thereby being killed in the ensuing explosion. In so doing, he saved the lives of several wounded Canadian soldiers.
It was not until October 2000 that Gander was at last awarded the Dickin Medal, which is the VC for animals; it was the first such award since 1949.
The citation reads:
For saving the lives of Canadian infantrymen during the Battle of Lye Mun on Hong Kong Island in December 1941. On three documented occasions, Gander, the Newfoundland mascot of the Royal Rifles of Canada, engaged the enemy as his regiment joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers, members of Battalion Headquarters “C” Force and other Commonwealth troops in their courageous defence of the island. Twice Gander’s attacks halted the enemy’s advance and protected groups of wounded soldiers. In a final act of bravery, the war dog was killed in action gathering a grenade. Without Gander’s intervention, many more lives would have been lost in the assault.
Gander’s name is listed with those of 1975 men and two women on the Hong Kong Veterans Memorial Wall in Ottawa, Canada.
Thanks for adding the date, mod. I will remember you when the Q1-12 freepathon comes around.
I’ve never read that much on the siege of and fall of Hong Kong. The Singapore battles seem to have gotten all the history written about them.
This ain’t to say none has been written, though. Have you ever seen anything?
bookmark
Just doing our job.
;>)
The pledge is much appreciated, thank you!
My mother, a Canadian, went to school with several of the Canadian soldiers that were involved with the defense of Hong Kong. They joined the Canadian Army in the early part of WWII (1939-1945) went thru basic training and ended up with a unit that was deployed to Newfoundland. The prevailing mindset was they would soon be sent to England. Orders came down from Ottawa that they were going to British Columbia on Canada's west coast. They traveled as a unit by train across Canada to Vancouver where they immediately boarded ships, not sure where they were headed. At sea they learned they were going to Hong Kong. They arrived in Hong Kong late November 1941, just ten days before Pearl Harbor. Hong Kong was attacked by the Japanese within a day or two of Pearl Harbor. British forces on Hong Kong lasted until Xmas before surrendering. Those that survived the battle (including several men my mother grew up with) ended up as POW. Some died in captivity, those who survived returned to Canada in September 1945.
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