Posted on 07/15/2014 4:36:41 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
#1 - “I’ll Be Seeing You” – Bing Crosby
#2 - “Swinging on a Star” – Bing Crosby
#3 – “I’ll Get By” - Harry James, with Dick Haymes (reissue of 1941 recording)
#4 – “Long Ago (and Far Away)” – Dick Haymes, with Helen Forrest
#5 - “G.I. Jive” – Louis Jordan
#6 - “Good Night, Wherever You Are” – Russ Morgan
#7 – “Amor” - Bing Crosby
#8 – “I Love You” – Bing Crosby
#9 - “Long Ago (and Far Away)” – Jo Stafford
#10 - “Amor” – Andy Russell
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1944/jul44/15jul44.htm#
Heavy fighting near St. Lo
Saturday, July 15, 1944 www.onwar.com
American column advancing in FranceOn the Western Front... Elements of the US 1st Army reach the outskirts of Lessay. From here to the Taute River, the advance is halted for regrouping. Heavy fighting takes place near St. Lo.
In Italy... Divisions of British 8th Army launch attacks against German positions at Arezzo. To the west, the US 5th Army advances toward Leghorn. The French Expeditionary Corps capture Castellina.
On the Eastern Front... The Soviet 2nd Baltic Front captures Opochka, 30 miles north of Idritsa. Other Soviet forces cross the Niemen River in several places west and southwest of Vilna.
In the United States... The Bretton Woods conference continues.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/15.htm
July 15th, 1944 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: RAF Fighter Command Mosquitoes have now shot down 428 V-1s, with No. 96 Sq. claiming 181, No. 605 Sq., 75.(22)
The Eighth Air Force in England flies two missions to France.
- Mission 474: 169 P-38 Lightnings and P-47 Thunderbolts make fighter-bomber attacks on enemy transport southeast of Paris; 2 P-38s and 1 P-47s are lost.
- Mission 475: 6 B-17 Flying Fortresses drop leaflets in France during the night.
- 27 B-24s fly CARPETBAGGER missions to France during the night.
NORTH SEA:
U-319 sunk SW of the Lindesnes, Norway, in position 57.40N, 05.00E, by depth charges from an RAF 206 Sqn Liberator. 51 dead (all hands lost). The aircraft was also lost in this action
U-561 shot down an RAF 159 Liberator.
FRANCE: Paris: The miliciens storm the Santé prison. 28 of the prisoners who were in revolt are put before a tribunal and executed there and then against the prison wall.
US forces reach Lessay.
Bad weather cancels most operations by the USAAF’s Ninth Air Force but 4 B-26 Marauders (92 others abort) hit the L’Aigle rail bridge during the afternoon; three fighter-bombers fly an uneventful sweep; and fighters of the IX Tactical Air Command fly area cover and bomb infantry, artillery, a marshalling yard, railroad, and a bridge in the Saint-Lo, Argentan, and Falaise areas.
GERMANY: Rastenburg: Von Stauffenberg’s second attempt to assassinate Hitler is foiled when the Fuhrer leaves a conference unexpectedly early.
ITALY: The British 8th Army begins an attack on Arezzo, Italy with 2 divisions.
Otani, Kazuo, SSgt., 442nd Infantry, will be awarded the MOH for actions today, at Pieve di S. Luce. (Posthumous). (William L. Howard)
The Fifteenth Air Force in Italy dispatches 600+ B-17s and B-24s to bomb 4 oil refineries in the Ploesti area and the Teleajenul pumping station, both in Romania; P-51 Mustangs and P-38s fly 300+ escort sorties.
FINLAND: Soviet forces try to break the Finnish U-line in Northern Karelia. Heaviest fighting is around Nietjrvi, where Finnish 5th Div and 15th Brigade start counter-attack in afternoon. The battle rages for two days, until on 17 July Finns are able to recover all lost positions.
EASTERN FRONT: The Soviet Second Baltic Front captures Opochka which is 30 miles north of Idritsa. Other Russian forces advance west and southwest of Vilna.
U-679 damaged Soviet MTB TK-57.
INDIAN OCEAN: U-181 sank SS Tanda at 13.22N, 74.09E.
The unescorted Director was torpedoed and sunk by U-198 in the Mozambique Channel southeast of Inhambane, Portuguese East Africa. One crewmember was lost. The master, 49 crewmembers and six gunners were rescued. The master and 14 crewmembers by the Portuguese sloop Goncalves Zarco and landed at Lourenco Marques. The chief officer, 34 crewmembers and six gunners landed at Kosi Bay, Portuguese East Africa.
GUAM: Supporting the preinvasion strikes against Guam, Seventh Air Force P-47s based on Saipan bomb and strafe Tinian Island and B-24s, staging through Eniwetok Atoll, hit Truk Atoll while Fifth Air Force B-24s blast Yap Island, scoring numerous hits in the town area and on a radio station and barracks area. Navy PB4Y Liberators of Bombing Squadron One Hundred Nine (VB-109) based at Isley Field on Saipan, again attack airfields on Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima and Haha Jima.
CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Rossland commissioned.
U.S.A.: Roosevelt, in his train Ferdinand Magellan is enroute from the Democratic Convention in Chicago to San Diego where he is to board a cruiser for a trip to Hawaii and a trip to MacArthur. Today he stops in the Chicago rail yards where Robert E. “Bob” Hannegan, the party chairman boards the train. He confers with Roosevelt for 30 minutes and leaves a note, post-dated July 19th, written in Roosevelt’s hand stating that he will be happy to have either Truman or Douglas as running mates. (William J. Stone)(183)
Minesweeper USS Ptarmigan launched.
Minesweeper USS Diploma commissioned.
"In Theresienstadt, the Nazis' "model" ghetto and concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, extensive attempts were made to create the illusion of normalcy.
Pictured in this still from a German propaganda film is the "Ghetto Swingers" orchestra.
Although the "Swingers" undoubtedly were not as carefree as this image suggests, Theresienstadt did have a lively musical community that produced some notable works, such as the Victor Ullman/Peter Kien opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis (The Emperor of Atlantis); Ullman's Piano Sonata no. 6, opus 49; and Hans Karasa's opera for children, Bundibar."
Again buried deep in the paper, but here Hull's statement is:
This Government will not slacken its efforts to rescue as many of these unfortunate people as can be saved from persecution and death."
Well... except for that last sentence, pretty clear report on the Holocaust.
Curious how the word "massacres" in the headline is in quotes.
July 15, 1944, one of the most significant combat days for the author of our manuscript. This is the day our author is seriously wounded in action on Martinville ridge, where his battalion segment would remain pinned down behind enemy lines for another three days before rescue and evacuation.
United States Army in World War II
European Theater of Operations
Breakout and Pursuit
Martin Bllumenson
CENTER OF MLITARY HISTORY
UNITED STATES ARMY
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1961
Unknown to the division commander at the time, an event had taken place during the night that was to exercise a significant and fortunate influence on the battle of St. Lô. Two assault battalions of the 116th Infantry had been making good progress along the Martinville ridge when the division headquarters, evidently lacking accurate knowledge of the situation and fearing an overextension of lines, had ordered a halt. One battalion stopped and consolidated a gain of about 500 yards. The other continued to move, for the battalion commander, Maj. Sidney V. Bingham, Jr., had received the order to halt while he was checking his supply lines in the rear. Lacking communication at that particular moment with his advance units, Bingham went forward to stop the advance. When he reached his leading troops, he found that they were more than 1,000 yards beyond the regimental front and were organizing positions astride the Bérigny highway. Having met little opposition, they had angled down across the face of the Martinville ridge to a point less than 1,000 yards from the eastern edge of St. Lô.
German artillery and mortar fire directed at the main body of the 116th Infantry fell behind and isolated Bingham’s comparatively small unit. Lacking half a rifle company, a squad of the heavy weapons company, the 81-mm. mortars, and the battalion staff—all of which were with the bulk of the regiment—the battalion formed a defensive perimeter. Reporting the gain to the regimental commander, Major Bingham said he thought he could hold even though he had little ammunition.
Separating the isolated force from the 116th and 175th Regiments were gaps of 1,000 and 700 yards, respectively. So strong was enemy fire from artillery, mortars, and automatic weapons that attempts by both regiments to reach the isolated battalion were blocked. So vulnerable was the position that some thought the entire battalion would be annihilated. On the other hand, the battalion’s position constituted the closest American approach to St. Lô. Eventually, the latter condition was to prove a significant indication to Germans and Americans alike that the city’s defenses were in reality disintegrating.
That this was the case seemed far from plausible at midnight, 15 July, when General Corlett turned over to the VII Corps his sector west of the Vire River and devoted his entire attention to the situation east of the Vire. The situation at St. Lô was hardly encouraging. On the right, the 35th Division was halted before the Pont-Hébert-St. Lô ridge road and had then only a precarious hold on Hill 122. On the left, the 29th Division was in even worse straits: one regiment unable to advance down the Isigny-St. Lô highway and the other two stopped on the Martinville ridge, apparently incapable either of driving the short distance into the city or of establishing physical contact with an isolated battalion. Yet more than ever the Americans needed St. Lô. General Bradley needed to control the Vire River crossing site at St. Lô in order to block German threats against the flank of his new operation. It was vital to bring the battle of St. Lô swiftly to an end, yet there seemed little alternative to the slow costly pattern of yard-by-yard advances already so familiar.
I assume the quote marks are there to inform the reader that it was Hull’s actual word. The words Holocaust and Shoah entered the vocabulary after the war. It’s hard to know what word to use for murder on an industrial scale the world had never seen before.
The German high command did indeed have a plan to retire from the northern Baltics to defend East Prussia and Germany proper, but Hitler would not hear of it.
What's worth mentioning is that while the Germans describe a hellish situation in Normandy, every one of them would have readily admitted that they preferred staying in Normandy rather than redeploying East.
Well, his stated alternatives for his situation were going to “Canada” or biting the “dust.” He didn’t give going to the Eastern Front as an alternative.
Given the defeatest tone of the letter, had a censor opened it and reported him, I suspect reassignment to a to a disciplinary unit would have been his best outcome.
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