Posted on 08/22/2014 4:24:37 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1944/aug44/22aug44.htm#
Red Army captures Jassy
Tuesday, August 22, 1944 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... In the south, Soviet troops of 2nd Ukrainian Front capture Jassy in their southward advance. The 3rd Ukrainian Front expands its attacks in a northward direction, after having advance up to 50 miles in the past two days.
In Japan... The government introduces measure to conscript all women between 12 and 40 for war-related work.
In Occupied Norway... Elements of the British Home Fleet (3 fleet carriers and 2 escort carriers), led by Admiral Moore, attack the German battleship Tirpitz in Kaafiord. German forces detect the approaching British forces which suffer heavy losses to a German barrage and defending fighters. No hits are achieved by the attackers because of an effective smoke screen over the target.
In Washington... At Dumbarton Oaks, senior Allied representatives meet to discuss postwar security.
...and so, Montgomery’s grand plan of Operation Market Garden begins to emerge.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/22.htm
August 22nd, 1944 (TUESDAY)
ENGLISH CHANNEL: RN minesweeper HMS Loyalty (J-217, ex-HMS Rattler) is torpedoed and sunk by U-480 (Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Joachim Forster) about 45 nautical miles (83 kilometres) south-southwest of Brighton, Sussex, England, in position 50.09N, 0.41W. This is about 11 nautical miles (20 kilometres) southeast of the position that U-480 torpedoed and sank the Canadian corvette HMCS Alberni (K 103) yesterday. Loyalty sinks within seven minutes with the loss of 20 of her crewmen. (Alex Gordon and Jack McKillop)
FRANCE: German officer Heinz Stahlschmidt blows up a bunker full of detonators, effectively preventing the destruction of Bordeaux by the retreating German army. Heinz Stahlschmidt had three ships sunk under him and he survived all three. He stayed behind and settled in Bordeaux after the war. He marrying a local girl and worked in the port fire brigade. Apparently, he has never received any recognition for what he did. (Jack McKillop and Tom Hickox)
Chapuis Group of the 3d Algerian Division and elements of the 1st US Armored Division invest Marseilles under II Corps. These are all French units under the Seventh US Army. (Gordon Rottman)
In the air over northern France, US IX Bomber Command operations are cancelled because of weather however, fighters fly sweeps, provide air cover for 2 infantry and 1 armoured division, strafe numerous military and transportation targets, and fly armed reconnaissance from Evreux to Troyes.
In the air over south-eastern France, weather restricts operations by the US Twelfth Air Force; A-20 Havocs hit motor transport in the Nice area during the night of 21/22 August and hit industrial buildings during the day; fighters hit motor transport west of the Rhone River and in scattered parts of south-eastern France.
The US 36th Infantry Division captures Grenoble without any opposition.
Light cruiser HMS Mauritius and destroyers HMS Ursa and Iroquois engaged in Operation KINETIC patrol off Gironde, France. These patrols were designed to close the resupply routes to isolate German garrisons along the Atlantic sea coast. In the span of 2 hrs they encountered and engaged 2 small German coastal convoys. At 0200 they engaged 4 enemy vessels at a range of 2 miles. An armed trawler and 2 small merchantmen were sunk and a minesweeper was forced to run aground while under heavy fire. At 0351 they engaged another 4 enemy ships. This time 2 armed trawlers and 2 small merchant ships were sunk. In all, in 2 nights (14 Aug and 22 Aug) the 3 ships had sunk the minesweeper M385 (540 tons), the armed trawlers V702 (440 tons), V717 (1,000 tons), V702 and V720 (both 280 tons) and V730 (535 tons), the seaplane tender Richtoffen (1,375 tons) and damaged the Elbing-class destroyer T-24. Several small merchant ships were also sunk or damaged.
GERMANY: U-2331 launched.
U-3003 commissioned.
Three targets are bombed by the USAAF’s Fifteenth Air Force in Italy:
- The Deschowitz synthetic oil facilities at Odertal is the target for 150 B-17 Flying Fortresses: 97 bomb visually and 53 use H2X radar to bomb. Five aircraft are lost.
- The I.G. Farben synthetic oil facilities at Blechhammer is the target for 114 B-24 Liberators: 66 bomb visually and 48 use H2X radar to bomb. Fourteen aircraft are lost.
- One aircraft bombs a marshalling yard as a target of opportunity.
AUSTRIA: Vienna is the target for 269 B-24 Liberators of the USAAF’s Fifteenth Air Force in Italy: 150 bomb the Lobau oil refinery, 96 bomb the Korneuburg oil refinery and 23 bomb the Vienna oil refinery with the loss of 18 aircraft. All bombing is visually
NORWAY: Operation GOODWOOD: A British fleet consisting of two escort carriers and three fleet carriers, including HMS INDEFATIGABLE flying Grumman F6F Hellcats, HMS Duke of York and supporting escorts of the Home Fleet under Admiral Moore attacks the German battleship TIRPITZ, but misses because of smoke screen cover. There are heavy British losses.
HUNGARY: During the night of 22/23 August, 50 RAF Liberators of No. 205 Group bomb a marshalling yard at Miskolc with the loss of three aircraft.
ROMANIA: Soviet forces break through to Jassy on the Dnestr River, in northeastern Romania, convincing Romania’s King Michael to sign an armistice with the Allies and concede control of his country to the USSR.
U.S.S.R..: Soviet Premier Josef Stalin writes letters to U.S. President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill denouncing the leaders of the Warsaw rising as “a group of criminals.”
ITALY: Allied troops capture Florence.
During the night of 22/23 August, an RAF Liberator of No. 205 (Heavy Bomber) Group drops leaflets on Milan.
ARCTIC OCEAN: The German submarine U-344 is sunk in the Barents Sea northwest of Bear Island, in position 74.54N, 15.26E, by depth charges from a RN Swordfish Mk III in the escort aircraft carrier HMS Vindex. All hands on the U-boat, 50-men, are lost.
At about 01.00 hours, whilst refuelling some of convoy JW.59 escorts, escort carrier HMCS Nabob is torpedoed by U-354 (Kapitanleutnant Hans-Jurgen Sthamer) with a FAT torpedo spread and tries to sink her at 01.22 hours with a Gnat which strikes HMS Bickerton. Although the torpedo struck aft causing considerable damage, Nabob is able to make the 1000-mile return trip to Rosyth, but is not repaired and subsequently broken up. (Nabob had just participated in a Home Fleet attack on Tirpitz, and was returning from that operation. Location: Arctic 120 miles WNW of the North Cape at 71 42N 19 11E.
Frigate HMS Bickerton is torpedoed in the same attack (see previous entry, above). There are 38 casualties. Although the ship was salvageable the force commander did not wish to be burdened by 2 crippled ships and since Nabob was the more valuable unit, Bickerton was scuttled by destroyer HMS Vigilant which fire a torpedo at Bickerton.
Canadian destroyer HMCS Algonquin takes off 203 Nabob crewmembers.
Nabob was one of two escort carriers manned by Canada; attempts to purchase some from the USN were rebuffed as Canada would not accept lend lease equipment for political reasons. Nabob survived the war (but was a total loss to the war effort) and became the German merchant Nabob after the war. U-354 was a VIIC type U-boat, built by Flensburger Schiffsbau-GES, Flensburg, Launched 6 Jan 42, commissioned 22 Apr 42 in service 28 months, she conducted 12 Patrols, with a record of 3 ships sunk for a total of 19,899 tons, and 2 ships damaged for a further 6,134 tons. U-354 was herself sunk 24 Aug 44 during Ops against convoy JW59 by HMS Keppel, Mermaid, Peacock and Loch Dunvegan in the Barents Sea NE of North Cape in position 72-49N, 30-41E, of U-354’s crew of 51 there were no survivors. Hans-Jurgen Sthamaer was born in 1919, at Lübeck. He joined then navy in 1937. His first wartime service was in the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper. In Mar 40 he went to the Aircraft Weapons School and then served with the II/KG 30 Group on anti-shipping duties until Feb 42, when he transferred to the U-boat Force. After conversion training he served as the First Watch Officer in U-593, U-604, and then U-91 until Dec 43. He was selected for command and underwent his U-boat commander’s course from Dec 43 to Feb 44. He took command of U-354 on 20 Feb 44.
Royal Navy Algerine class minesweeper HMS Loyalty (ex-HMS Rattler) is torpedoed and sunk by U-480 (Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Joachim Forster) within 10 miles of where she had sunk HMCS Alberni. Loyalty sinks within 7 minutes. Location: South of the Nab Tower at 50 09N 00 41W. (Alex Gordon)(108)
JAPAN: Tokyo: Japanese schoolchildren are interrupting their studies to go into factories to support Japan’s war effort, Tokyo radio reported today. Girls aged as young as 12 are working in munitions factories. The broadcast spoke of students “discharging their duties with high fervour in munitions factories amid the din of machinery.” It quoted one boy as saying that he had decided “to work with all his might” after he heard the “tragic news” about the loss of Saipan.
CANADA: Frigate HMCS Antigonish arrived Halifax from builder Esquimalt, British Columbia.
Corvette HMCS Sherbrooke completed foc’sle extension refit Liverpool, Nova Scotia.
Tug HMCS Glenside launched Owen Sound, Ontario.
Frigate HMCS St Pierre commissioned.
U.S.A.: Minesweeper USS Liberty launched.
Destroyer escort USS Williams launched.
Minesweeper USS Project commissioned.
Submarine USS Sennet commissioned.
Destroyer minelayer USS Thomas E Fraser commissioned.
Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-372 was commissioned at Sturgeon Bay WI with LT W. H. Bowden, USCGR, as commanding officer. She was assigned to and operated in the Southwest Pacific and Western Pacific areas during the war including Leyte, Lingayen, etc.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-965 is attacked by two Martlet aircraft (Wildcats), 3 men were killed and 8 wounded. [Bootsmaat Kurt Pesch, Matrosengefreiter Heinz Schade, Maschinengefreiter Thiel] (Alex Gordon)
"With tags attached to their clothing, refugees arrive at the Fort Ontario camp in Oswego, New York.
Opened in 1944, the camp served as a temporary refuge for nearly 1,000 European Jews, along with a few non-Jews.
With little initial hope of staying in the United States after the war ended, the refugees suffered from low morale and anxiety about their future.
In December 1945 President Harry Truman eased restrictions, allowing the refugees to remain in the U.S. if they wished."
I have noticed that without fail the Times has run a page one story about Thomas Dewey. Even when he was doing the World tour a few months back.
After five years of watching Germany seize and hold Europe, appearing all but invincible, what a tremendous psychological relief and uplift it must have been to see its occupying force in France being completely routed! Those maps showing the Wehrmacht beating a hasty retreat must have seemed almost too good to be true.
Was that Dewey or Wendell Willkie on the world tour? Or both?
I was about to write that he was the hometown boy, but realized that both were New Yorkers. I wonder how many times both presidential candidates have been from the same state?
Lincoln and Douglas (1860) were both from Illinois.
Experiencing the war day by day has given me more perspective on what led up to Market Garden. It is true the opposition against the Brits and Canadians was tougher, with more armor than the Americans faced. Still, Monty's lack of progress by late August is rather embarrassing, isn't it? Patton is now across the Seine south of Paris and Monty is still far from a river that was much closer to him that Third Army's initial positions. American casualties are far higher than British. Monty fobbed off on the Canadians doing the hard job of closing the Falaise Gap. Monty will soon lose his title of overall ground commander in Northern France.
Market Garden will be his chance to do Something Big, something Pattonesque, won't it? His chance to show he isn't just a set piece battle general, but understands how to fight a war of maneuver. Well, we'll see how that works out.
Stalin is being utterly contemptable in his statements about Warsaw. I don't believe for a second he couldn't have gone into Warsaw had he wanted. The tip off is Stalin's initial refusal to allow aircraft attempting to supply Warsaw landing rights at the Frantic airfields in Ukraine. IIRC, Stalin only reluctantly allowed one mission by the USAAF. It worked, the Polish Home Army was destroyed and the way cleared for his communist quislings.
Stalin was just as eager to crush the Poles as Hitler was. He let The Germans use their own resources and blood to do his dirty work.
Stalin was just as eager to crush the Poles as Hitler was. He let The Germans use their own resources and blood to do his dirty work.
Yes, as we have seen Stalin intends to dominate Poland as a defensive buffer against Germany. He also intends a radical redrawing of Poland’s borders. He has already gotten pushback on that from the Polish government in exile in London, to which the Home Army was loyal. Hence, he welcomed the Home Army’s destruction.
From an earlier post...
The real secret to our victory in WWII was prayer. (Also the key to American success and prosperity over the last two centuries.)
Rees Howells was a Christian missionary and leader who later in life founded a Bible college in Wales where amazing intercessory prayer went on and spiritual battles were won in prayer BEFORE the actual events happened on the ground.
The link describes some of this from a chapter in the book, “Rees Howells Intercessor”.
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