RUSSIANS TAKE WARSAW, REPORTED IN CRACOW; BRITISH ADVANCE, AMERICANS CLOSE ON ST. VITH (1/18/45)

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles and the occasional radio broadcast delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread.

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Luzon, P.I., 1941: Invasion of Luzon and the Advance to Manila, 9 January-4 February 1945
The Philippine Islands: Leyte Island and the Visayas, 1944 – Sixth Army Operations Mindoro and Marinduque Islands, 13 December 1944-24 January 1945
The Ardennes Area, 1944: Operations, 17 January-7 February 1945
Eastern France and the Low Countries, 1944: Territorial Changes along the Front, 16 December 1944-7 February 1945 and Allied Plan for Rhineland Campaign
Southeastern France 1944: German Offensive, 1-30 January 1945 and Allied Reduction of Colmar Pocket, 20 January-9 February 1945
Poland, 1945: Russian Offensive to the Oder – Operations 12 January-30 March 1945
China, 1941: Operation Ichigo, 1945 and Final Operations in the War
China-Burma, 1941: Third Burma Campaign – Slim’s Offensive, June 1944-March 1945

Rips Line in Poland – 2-3
Nazis Hint at Rout of Army in Poland (Brigham) – 3-4
’45 Plane Output is Again Enlarged (Waggoner) – 4
Russian Soldiers Fighting in Streets of Budapest (photo) – 4
Accord on Poland at Once Held Vital (Daniell) – 5
War News Summarized – 5
Foe Stiff in West (Daniel, Johnston) – 6-7
U.S. Men Use TNT to Slit Icy Ground – 7
Houffalize Scene of Awful Ruins (by Harold Denny) – 8
There is Also Plenty of Snow along the Western Front (photo) – 8
Allies Bomb German Oil Plants in Attacks by 2,250 Warplanes – 9
MacArthur Protects Flank by 17-Mile Dash along Gulf (by Lindesay Parrott) – 10-11
Bungled Defense Aids Us on Luzon (by George E. Jones) – 11
O’Donnell Let 111 ‘Superforts’ over Tokyo, 109 Got Back, in First Raid, Citation Says – 11
Our Airmen Attack near Manila and American Ground Forces Move on Capital (photos) – 12-13
China and Burma (by Hanson W. Baldwin) – 15
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the Fighting in Various War Zones – 16-18
Roosevelt Asks 2 Billion for Navy – 18

http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/0/18.htm

January 18th, 1945 (THURSDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: Winston Churchill today gave MPs his most confident and sparkling report of the whole war - now in its 65th month. He appealed for unity at home while the Allies use the overwhelming forces which are now poised to crush Nazi Germany. The prime minister warned the Germans that giving in now will be easier for them than enduring what the Allies have in store for them.

Minesweeper HMS Liberty commissioned.

NETHERLANDS: NETHERLANDS: Fusilier Dennis Donnini (b.1925), Royal Scots Fusiliers, despite a head wound, drove the Germans from a house, firing until he was killed soon after. (Victoria Cross)

GERMANY: Oberst Karl-Heinz Sieber, the commandant of Stalag IX-B Bad Orb, orders the segregation of American Jewish-PoWs from non-Jews.

After a brief protest and the beating of the U.S. Man of Confidence (_Vertrauensmann_, or MOC), Sergeant Johann “Hans” Kasten, the new POWs complied with the order. Except for those who hid their identity, most Jews were placed in a separate compound surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.
U-2533 commissioned

U-2363 launched.

POLAND: Warsaw: The Soviet puppet government arrives from Lublin to take over the reins of government.

Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Germans order the inmates to evacuate the camp immediately for transport - on foot or by train - concentration camps in Germany.

CANADA:
HMS LST 3543 ordered from North Vancouver Ship Repairs Ltd.

Corvette HMCS Summerside completed repairs Halifax and departed for workups Bermuda.

U.S.A.:
Frigate USS Milledgeville commissioned.

Destroyer USS Hollister laid down.

U-2533 Commissioned.

This was the boat that perhaps could have won the war in the Atlantic for the Germans had she been in the water maybe 2 years earlier. She was the first real combat submarine that was meant to dwell in the deep and not just retreat to it once in danger.

These boats had much better crew facilities than previous classes, much more silent underwater, freezer for foodstuffs, a shower and a basin and little things like that. Also they had hydraulic torpedo reload system that enabled the commander to reload all 6 tubes in something like 10 minutes which was even less than it took to reload one tube on the VIIC normally.

3-times the electrical power of the VIIC gave the boat enormous underwater range compared to the older types and this boat could submerge far beyond the Bay of Biscay from the French bases so the Valley of Death was a thing of the past for them really. It took the boat 3-5 hours to re-charge the batteries with the Schnorchel once every 2-3 days if travelling at moderate 4-8 knots and was thus much less in danger from aircraft which sank about 56% of all U-boats lost in the war.

If the boat carried TMC mines she could also carry 14 torpedoes.

January 18, 1944:

January 15: "The concentration camp at Plaszów, Poland, is liberated by the Red Army.
"152 Jewish women at the Brodnica labor camp near Stutthof, Poland, are murdered by their overseers. A few escape.
January 16: "Soviet troops enter Czestochowa, Poland, shortly after the last slave laborers have been evacuated.
January 17: "The Red Army enters Warsaw, Poland, as well as Pest, Hungary.
"Final roll call is taken at Auschwitz: 11,102 Jews remain at Birkenau; 10,381 women in the Birkenau women's camp; 10,030 at the Auschwitz main camp; 10,233 at the Monowitz satellite camp; and about 22,800 in the remaining factories in the surrounding region; See January 18-March 1945.
"In Budapest, 119,000 Jews are freed by Soviet troops.
"The Soviets arrest Raoul Wallenberg, whom they cynically suspect is using his humanitarian efforts for the Jews to cover his collaboration with the Germans or the Western Allies (the War Refugee Board was sponsoring him); See 1947.
"SS guards at the Chelmno, Poland, death camp play "William Tell" by shooting at bottles placed on the heads of Jewish inmates who have been engaged in demolishing the camp's crematoria.
In the evening, the remaining Jews are led from their barracks in groups of five and shot.
One of the prisoners, Mordechai Zurawski, stabs an SS guard and escapes despite suffering a gunshot wound to the foot.
A second inmate, Shimon Srebnik, also survives after being shot through the neck and mouth and left for dead.
Forty-seven other Jewish prisoners at Chelmno, aware that the SS will shoot them before fleeing west ahead of the Soviets, take refuge in a building that is then set afire by the SS.
Jews who run from the blaze are machine-gunned; only one of the original 47 survives.
The SS abandons the Chelmno camp later in the day.
January 18-March: "Acting on orders from Berlin, the SS begins a massive, on-foot evacuation of all prisoners and slave laborers at the Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz camps and from the Auschwitz region (Upper Silesia, Poland).
Of the thousands of marchers, most die from exposure, exhaustion, and abuse on their way to their destinations.
Boys evacuated from Birkenau march toward Mauthausen, Austria.
Many of the boys are on 'cart commando' duty; i.e., harnessed to enormous carts in groups of 20. "

"The Soviets liberated Budapest, Hungary, in January and February 1945.
Upon arrival, the Red Army discovered thousands of Jews who had been murdered by the Nazis.
Although it became quite common for the Allied armies to uncover grisly evidence of the crimes committed by the Germans, even the most battle-hardened soldiers could not view such scenes impassively."
" Star of David marks a safe house on Kossuth Platz in Budapest, Hungary.
In the last months of the war, diplomats--especially the Swedes and the Swiss--sought to protect as many Jews as possible from the rampant violence unleashed by the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian Fascists.
When the city fell to the Soviets early in 1945, some 120,000 Jews survived to be liberated, among them 25,000 in safe houses. "
"These four French women were accused of collaborating with the Germans while France was occupied during the war.
After the war, revenge was exacted upon female collaborators through such acts of public humiliation as shaving their heads and undressing them.
Male collaborators were often treated even more harshly--sentenced to prison or executed.
Yet many important collaborators escaped punishment for years, being protected by influential French government and Catholic Church officials."

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