Posted on 07/23/2014 5:28:48 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
The News of the Week in Review
Fifteen News Questions – 15
The Democratic Party Enters a New Phase (Krock) – 16
Himmler’s Power Grows by Events in Germany (Axelsson) – 17-18
Still Going Strong (cartoon) – 18
Shake Hands with the Devil (cartoon) – 18
Six Months’ Pattern of the Pacific War (map) – 19
Japan’s Cabinet Shift Reflects War’s Course (by Sidney Shalett) – 20
Role of Robot Planes in the Future Debated (by Lansing Warren) – 21
Answers to Fifteen News Questions – 21
Red Army Drives Point to the Line of the Vistula (map) – 22
Red Army Drives Show No Sign of Flagging (by W.H. Lawrence) – 23
The Battle of Normandy: Prelude to the Battle of Paris (map) – 24
Our Men Drive Forward in France (by Harold Denny) – 25
Caen and St. Lo Open Two Doors (Middleton) – 26
The New York Times Magazine
How Long will the War Last? (Baldwin) – 27-29
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1944/jul44/23jul44.htm#
Communists challenge London exiles
Sunday, July 23, 1944 www.onwar.com
In Moscow... The formation of a Polish Committee of National Liberation is announced. The London based Polish government in exile calls it “the creation of a handful of unknown communists.”
On the Eastern Front... Soviet forces capture Pskov. This was the last major town of the prewar USSR to have been held by German forces. To the south, troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front enter Lublin. German forces continue to resist in Lublin.
From Berlin... Field Marshal Schorner replaces General Friessner as commander of Army Group North.
In Italy... Elements of the US 4th Corps (part of US 5th Army) penetrate the outskirts of Pisa but are only able to occupy the area south of the Arno River.
In the Mariana Islands... On Guam, American marines on the northern beachhead reach Point Adelup. On the southern beachhead, the marines cross the neck of the Orote Peninsula, thereby cutting off the main Japanese airfield on the island.
On the Western Front... The Canadian 1st Army becomes operational in Normandy.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/23.htm
July 23rd, 1944 (SUNDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The Eighth Air Force in England flies two missions.
- Mission 490: 280 bombers and 193 fighters are dispatched to attack airfields in France; 78 B-17s hit Creil Airfield while 166 B-24 Liberators bomb Couvron Airfield and Athies Airfield at Laon and Juvincourt Airfield. Escort is provided by 177 P-38 Lightnings and P-51 Mustangs.
1. 78 B-17s hit Creil Airfield; 1 B-17 is lost.
2. Of 198 B-24s dispatched, 61 hit Laon/Couvron Airfield, 57 hit Laon/Athies Airfield and 48 hit Juvincourt Airfield.
- Mission 491: 6 B-17s drop leaflets in France during the night.
- 21 B-24s fly CARPETBAGGER missions during the night.
FRANCE: The Germans have launched a ferocious attack on the Vercors, a mountainous area south-west of Grenoble controlled by the French Resistance. The “Republic of the Vercors” began life on 3 July, when the area was declared “liberated territory” and occupied by 3,000 Maquisards. Two days ago, however, the Germans responded by laying siege to the “republic” with 15,000 troops, including men from elite SS and alpine regiments, under General Karl Pflaum. The SS men took the Maquisards by surprise when they landed by glider on an airfield at Vassieux, ironically intended for Allied aircraft to bring assistance to the rebels. So far 650 Resistance fighters have fallen in heavy combat, and as reprisal for their defiance the SS has shot the population of five villages.
Normandy: The First Canadian Army, under General Henry Crerar, becomes operational.
330+ USAAF Ninth Air Force A-20 Havocs and B-26s bomb rail bridges along the Argentan-Paris and Lisieux-Bernay-Evreux railroads, and hit fuel dumps at Foret de Conches; fighters escort bombers, attack rail lines, enemy installations, and movements in the Argentan-Alencon-Chartres-Evreux areas, and bomb bridges, strongpoints, and a supply dump in support of the US First Army.
ITALY: Units of the US IV Corps occupy parts of Pisa which lie south of the Arno River.
The Fifteenth Air Force dispatches 42 B-24s to bomb the Berat, Albania oil refinery; 15 P-51s provide target cover for the bombers and afterwards strafe roads and targets of opportunity in Yugoslavia near the Albanian border.
Sowar Ditto Ram(b.?), Central India Horse, despite losing his left leg to a mine, crawled across a minefield to aid a wounded comrade, before dying. His commander, Lt. St. John Graham Young (b.1921), Royal Tank Regt., was also going to help a wounded man when a mine blew off his right leg. He reached the man and treated his wound, but died next day. (George Crosses)
EASTERN FRONT: Russian forces capture Pskov, the last major town of pre-war Soviet Union in German hands. They also take Lublin.
German Generaloberst (Colonel-General) Schörner replaces General Friessner at Army Group North which is defending the Baltic States. Schörners Army Group is outnumbered by the Soviets and Army Group Centre is some 30 miles away. Because of this, it is said that Schörner asked Hitler to let Estonia go. The Führer refuses. (Gene Hanson)
A Polish Committee of National Liberation is announced in Moscow. The Polish government in Exile in London denounces this move by “a handful of unknown communists”.
Rastenburg: Heinz Guderian, the new army chief of staff, swears an oath of loyalty to Hitler.
Theresienstadt: An inspection is made of the camp by a committee of the International Red Cross. In preparation for the visit many prisoners have been deported to Auschwitz to relieve overcrowding, dummy stores, a cafe, a bank, kindergartens, a school and flower gardens are installed. In the wake of the inspection most of the prisoners interviewed are sent to Auschwitz. (Jean Beach)(118)
PACIFIC: Supporting the invasion of Guam and preinvasion strikes on Tinian, P-47 Thunderbolts based on Saipan hit Tinian Island while Far East Air Force (FEAF) B-24s again bomb Yap Island, hitting the town area and airfield, and Seventh Air Force attacking Truk Atoll.
Three of the four task groups of Task Force 58 depart the Mariana Islands to attack Japanese air bases in the western Caroline Islands.
GUAM: US Marines have captured the major airfield.
CANADA: HMC HC 276 Stores Lighter to St. John’s, Newfoundland.
HMC HC 270 Water Lighter 79ft, steel to Cornwallis, Nova Scotia.
HMC HC 280 Water Lighter 79ft steel to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Corvettes HMCS Long Branch and Hespeler departed St. John’s as part of escort for convoy HXS 300.
U.S.A.: Baseball, in a doubleheader between the Chicago Cubs and New York Giants, the Cubs’ right fielder Bill “Swish” Nicholson hits four home runs in the two games including three consecutive home runs in the second game. The Cubs win the first game, 7-4, but the Giants win the second game, 12-10.
Destroyer minelayer USS Adams launched.
Destroyer USS Lowry commissioned.
"The Majdanek death camp in eastern Poland was the first of the camps liberated by the Allies, on July 23, 1944.
Pictured are corpses in Majdanek that the Germans had exhumed, hoping to burn them before the Russians arrived.
Often, as was the case here, the Soviet offensives advanced so quickly that the Red Army showed up before the Germans could complete their grisly task."
"The Nazis often used incinerators, such as these in Majdanek, to burn the bodies of their victims.
In the end, however, the number of victims was too great even for this relatively 'efficient' method of corpse disposal.
The Allies found hundreds of thousands of cadavers in the camps that they liberated."
"Partially burnt corpses tell the gruesome story of Maly Trostinets, a village near Minsk in Belorussia, where the final deportees from the Minsk Ghetto met their deaths.
With the approach of Soviet forces, the Germans hastily executed prisoners who had been utilized to destroy the evidence of thousands of other deaths.
The prisoners, both Jews and non-Jewish Russian civilians, were herded into a barracks, which was set afire. In spite of the Nazis' efforts, a few Jews survived to tell the story of the mass killings at Maly Trostinets and at the neighboring village of Bolshoi Trostinets."
"Russian soldiers and Polish civilians, including a nun, are overcome by grief and horror as they stand among the ruins of the Majdanek death camp.
Camp administrators, fearing they would be captured and the purpose of the camp revealed, hastily fled in July 1944 before the advancing Russian Army arrived, taking along about 1,000 prisoners.
They set fire to the camp, hoping to destroy the evidence of their crimes, but failed to obliterate the gas chambers, which were testimony to the camp's ghastly purpose."
"This mound of bones provides grisly evidence of the death toll at Majdanek.
Over its years of operation as a concentration and death camp, around 500,000 inmates were imprisoned there, 360,000 of whom, mostly Jews, died by gas, hanging, starvation, disease, or overwork.
When the Red Army liberated the camp, they found about 500 inmates still alive."
Not bombing Wotje and Jaluit in the Eastern Marshalls any more. Must not be anything left to attack.
Panzer Lehr is holding a nice, straight line very well defined by the road, and easily visible from the air:
Most of those panzer divisions are pretty worn out anyway, and no replacements of men and machines are being received. The Allied air interdiction, plus the need to patch together some kind of front in the east, is starving the Germans in Normandy.
Is the article on page 10 regarding the POWs whom the Germans shot about the “Great Escape” prisoners?
Yes indeed.
Panel 20 shows an advt for the presessor of the University I graduated from, Pace Institute in the advt, now Pace University. It is still across the street from City Hall but a bit larger. They also have campuses in Westchester County.
Interesting article on “robot planes” and how they will be used in future wars. It’s sort of like the “robot planes” we have now, the drones we keep hearing about.
I was thinking more of guided missles and then cruise missiles, for which the V1 was the true predecessor.
Gives rise to one of my favorite trivia questions:
Name the only two capitol cities in the world subjected to cruise missile, conventional bombing, and ballistic missile attacks.
Shake Hands with The Devil - Negotiated Peace.
Battleship Colorado and Destroyer Norman Scott got whacked. ouch.
History was happening every day during this war. See the articles about the World Bank and stuff.... the New World Order was being constructed while the fighting was still happening.
exactly! The cartoonist obviously drew that conclusion too.
One of the articles incorrectly implied that Rommel was a member of the Nazi Party.
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