Posted on 05/15/2015 4:15:16 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Let me have your proposals forthwith for returning to the fishermen the largest number of the trawlers which are in your possession, and also for doing your utmost to repair and help them to get to sea at the earliest moment.
We need another three or four hundred thousand tons of fish, which are all there waiting, to help us through the hard years which are coming.
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
*Another one of the 9,200 freed from Stalag Luft I was Homer’s uncle.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/4/15.htm
May 15th, 1945 (TUESDAY)
AUSTRIA: Vienna: The republic of AUSTRIA is declared.
YUGOSLAVIA: The last pocket of German resistance at Slovenski Gradek, surrenders.
Belgrade: The war is over in Yugoslavia, and now the counting begins. Out of a population of 15 million, 1.4 million civilans (including 55,000 murdered Jews) and 305,000 soldiers have perished. Few countries have suffered so much in terms of deaths per head of population. The Germans fought the partisans viciously, battling on for seven days after Zagreb was liberated. Tito is determined to keep his country united. He has accepted royalists in a provisional government, but has made it clear that Yugoslavia will be a communist state.
BURMA: Aung San, the Burmese Nationalist leader, joins the Allied drive against the Japanese.
INDIAN OCEAN: During actions starting today British destroyers sink the Japanese cruiser HAGURO in the Malacca Strait.
JAPAN: Sugar Loaf and Conical Hills are the scenes of fierce fighting on Okinawa.
PACIFIC OCEAN: US submarines operating from the Central Pacific and Australia have contributed enormously to Japan’s desperate war situation by sinking 60% of the merchant ships destroyed. Last year the US submariners reached the pinnacle of their success by sinking 2,387,780 tons of shipping. Japanese losses were then running at a rate exceeding 300,000 tons monthly.
Japan’s war industries face now collapse as vital overseas supplies of oil and raw materials are sunk by submarine attack. The loss of imported food threatens to starve the population. The main burden of the submarine offensive has been borne by the US Pacific force. In addition, US submarines have operated from Australian ports.
In September 1944 they were joined by the 8th Submarine Flotilla of the Royal Navy, which moved to Fremantle from Ceylon to join the Seventh Fleet. These and Dutch submarines concentrated their efforts in the waters around Singapore, Java, Indochina and the Philippines to which Japanese naval forces withdrew after leaving the Marshall Islands in February 1944.
As well as having made a major contribution to the destruction of Japan’s merchant fleet, the US submarines have inflicted heavy losses on Japanese warships. Last year their battle successes included the sinking of the battleship KONGO off Formosa and of seven aircraft carriers, including the 59,000-ton supercarrier SHINANO, then the largest and most carrier afloat. The mammoth carrier had just been converted from a battleship and was on her way to Kure for final fitting-out when, on 29 November, she encountered the submarine USS ARCHERFISH on lifeguard duty off Honshu to rescue B-29 crews. The ARCHERFISH fired six torpedoes to sink the SHINANO, which took 1,435 sailors with her.
James Verdolini notes in his diary:
May 15, 1945
Admiral Mitchner comes aboard Randolph. We are now flagship, and Task Force 58. Wow, the Admiral had two ships shot from under him in three days, hope we’re not next! He has a long visored cap, and while under attack he waves that damn thing at the Japanese planes. I’m sure they don’t know who he is, because of his waving cap, but who knows?
On one of our mid watches in Radio 1, he came down from Flag Plot, and we jumped up at attention, but he put us at ease, and we shot the breeze for awhile. He had smelled our good radio shack coffee. There is a message tube, from radio to the bridge, just above us. We made our coffee in a porcelain pitcher. We boil water on a hot plate, we put the grounds in a clean sock, tie it, as a filter, throw in the grounds, boil some more.If we did not have a clean sock, then we use a tea strainer to pour our cups.
The only thing bad about it, was with the heat( we had no air conditioning), after an hour or so, the coffee would get some kind of a swirling mess in it. Didn’t affect the taste though, and we never got sick. But it sure did smell good when it was brewing. Speaking of the heat in radio rooms.
We would copy code for 8 hours, with a break at each hour so we could tune our receivers. We would have code in one ear, and Tokyo Rose in the other ear piece of our headphones.(Of course my Lucky Strikes were right beside my cup of coffee). Anyhow, we all would get the “Chinese Rot”, as we called it. Our armpits would sweat, and we would get blisters, which hurt, and itched. We had no deodorants, just talcum powder, and Mennen skin bracer. Anyhow, a couple buddies from gunnery, said they had a good way to get rid of the “Rot”. I’m all for that. We went down to the Head (Shower room). One of them held my arms up, while the other guy used shaving soap under my arms. Then he shaved the hair, and blisters from my armpits! Ow...that hurt. They made me wash the blood and shaving soap off, then I had to raise my arms again. The guy grabbed me tight, so I couldn’t move, and the other guy poured Mennon skin bracer right over the shaved blisters, and blood. I had tears running down my face. (But the “rot” never came back). Had to tape handkerchiefs under my armpits, for a few days. Never going to forget that.
We are continuing to bomb Kyushu. Many Bogies around.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: US forces launch fresh attacks on Mindanao and Negros.
NEW GUINEA: Pte Edward Kenna (b.1919), Australian Military Forces, ignored a hail of bullets as he stood and fired at a Japanese bunker, which was captured shortly after. (Victoria Cross)
U.S.A.: William T. Paull (USMC) arrives back in the US docking at San Francisco, after being away for 35 months. (William T. Paull)
Light cruiser USS Providence commissioned.
The “royalists” (representatives of the government-in-exile) in Tito’s government quickly discovered that they were powerless. I think they had all resigned by the end of the year. The figure of 1.7 million dead was inflated...more careful studies (one by a Serb scholar, one by a Croat scholar) came up with between 1 million and 1.1 million dead...still a staggering death toll. I think about 80% of the Jews in the so-called Independent State of Croatia (which included Bosnia but not all of Croatia) died, and 94% of the Jews in Serbia (also under a puppet regime during the war).
Five years ago you were posting articles about German panzers crossing the Meuse. Has it really been that long?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Poljana
Battle of Poljana
The Battle of Poljana (Monday May 14 – Tuesday May 15, 1945) was a battle of World War II in Yugoslavia. It started at Poljana, near the village of Prevalje in Yugoslavia (now Slovenia), and was the culmination of a series of engagements between the Yugoslav Partisans and a large retreating Axis column, numbering in excess of 30,000 men. The column consisted of units of the German (Wehrmacht), the Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia, the Montenegrin People’s Army (former Chetniks and the survivors of the Battle on Lijeve field), and Slovene Home Guard forces, as well as other fascist collaborationist factions and even civilians who were attempting to escape into British-controlled Austria. It took place after Nazi Germany officially surrendered on 8 May.
...
Just before 9 am on May 14, a significant force of mostly NDH units with some Montenegrin People’s Army and Slovenian Home Guard troops approached Partisan positions at the Šurnik farm near Poljana demanding free passage west. This was refused, and firing commenced on both sides. NDH attacks, including artillery fire support, intensified in the afternoon, evening and overnight, finally ceasing on the morning of 15 May with the arrival of around 20 British tanks. Tense negotiations followed, during which British officers made it abundantly clear that they would not offer protection to the collaborators and that unconditional surrender to the Partisans was the only option. White flags of surrender were finally raised around 4 pm on 15 May.
Casualty estimates by the Partisans were at least 310 NDH and Axis dead in the two main locations of fighting, and 250 wounded. On the Partisan side, losses were considerably lower, numbering fewer than 100 dead and wounded.
The surrender of this last area of Axis resistance 8 days after the official end of World War II in Europe, the surrender of the Germans on Monday 7 May 1945, was the last major battle of World War II in Europe.
Surrender Of U-805, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 05/15/1945
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFPpRIZNR18
They sure look like happy campers. Just look at their faces.
Well gosh. Looks like the Battle of the Meuse just might end at the English Channel.
At least until the tides of war run the other direction...
Austrian civilians prepare mass graves to bury former inmates in the Gusen concentration camp after American forces liberated the camp. Gusen, Austria, between May 5 and May 15, 1945.
— USHMM, courtesy of Marvin Springer
An emaciated survivor wrapped in a blanket sits up on a stretcher in the newly liberated Gusen concentration camp. Gusen, Austria, between May 5 and May 15, 1945.
— National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.
I remember that article by Baldwin. It wasn’t very accurate or informative, and I didn’t have a high opinion of Baldwin at the time because he was so far off from what was actually happening. Since then he made a much better impresion. In part I would attribute it to his cultivation of a number of well-placed sources. In part, the article of May 15, 1940 was a reflection of the fog of war, where the French had no idea what was happening on their Meuse Front, and the Germans weren’t telling anyone.
But nobody other than the Germans expected the Battle of France to go the way it did. Certainly not Joseph Stalin.
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