Posted on 10/27/2014 4:23:22 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1944/oct44/27oct44.htm#
Fighters fly from Philippines
Friday, October 27, 1944 www.onwar.com
In the Philippines... On land, the US 7th Division (part of US 24th Corps) captures Buri Airfield. Meanwhile, the Tacloban airstrip, on Leyte, becomes operational and the US 9th Fighter Squadron flies the first mission by Philippines based American fighters since 1942. At sea, a group of 3 carriers commanded by Admiral Sherman attacks Japanese shipping around Luzon, sinking 2 destroyers. There are also air strikes on Luzon. The battleship USS California is damaged.
On the Eastern Front... In Latvia, new Soviet attacks begin. In Hungary, Soviet 4th Ukrainian Front captures Uzhgorod in the northeast.
On the Western Front... In the Scheldt, forces of the Canadian 1st Army continue attacks on Beveland and inland. Bergen-op-Zoom is captured. Meanwhile, German forces counterattack the British 2nd Army to the right. Tilburg is captured by British forces.
From Berlin... Field Marshal von Richthofen, the former commander of the elite close support force Fliegerkorps 8 in France, the Balkans and the Soviet Union, and cousin of the “Red Baron” is forces to retire from the command of Luftflotte 2 in Italy, following brain surgery.
In Italy... The Allied advance is limited by poor winter weather.
In Spain... The Spanish Army launches a campaign against Republican resistance forces located in the Pyrenees Mountains.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/9/27.htm
October 27th, 1944 (FRIDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The first Avro Anson Mk XII (NL 153) makes its maiden flight. (22)
Also the prototype Bristol Buckmaster three-seat advanced trainer, (TJ 714) makes its maiden flight. (22)
NORTH SEA: German submarine U-1060 (Type VIIF), not a boat but a torpedo transport operating mainly to the Norwegian bases, is driven ashore and grounded about 87 nautical miles (15 kilometers) west-southwest of Bronnøysund, Norway, in position 65.24N, 11.59E after damages by rockets and depth charges from a Firefly Mk. I and two Barracuda Mk. IIs in the British aircraft carrier HMS Implacable (86). The submarine is later destroyed by two RAF Halifax Mk. IIs, aircraft of No. 503 Squadron based at Stornoway, Hebrides Islands, U.K.; and two RAF (B-24) Liberator Mk. Vs, aircraft of No. 311 (Czech) Squadron based at Tain, Ross-shire, Scotland. There are 43 survivors of the 55 men in the sub. (Alex Gordon)
NETHERLANDS: The Canadian attacks in the Beveland continues. Inland, Bergen-op-Zoom is captured.
A sharp German counterattack is mounted near Venlo, against the British 2nd Army Sector and British troops capture Tilburg.
In the Canadian First Army’s II Corps area, forward elements of the Canadian 2d Division reach the Beveland Canal, at the western end of the Beveland Isthmus, and cross during the night of 27/28 October. The 52d Division expands the Baarland bridgehead to Oudelande. In the British I Corps area, Bergen-op-Zoom falls to the Canadian 4th Armoured Division. The 413th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. 104th Infantry Division, assisted by effective artillery preparation and attached British tanks, takes Zundert by storm.
In the British Second Army’s VIII Corps area, the Germans, following a heavy artillery barrage, open a strong tank-infantry attack toward Asten in an effort to divert Allied strength from the main battle front, penetrating lightly held positions of the U.S. 7th Armored Division along the Canal de Deurne and Canal du Nord, west of Venlo. The Germans take Meijel, near the junction of the two canals, and penetrate the line at Heitrak, on the Meijel- Deurne highway, and near Nederweert. Combat Command A of the U.S. 7th Armored Division seals off the penetration near Nederweert.
During the night of 27/28 October, eight USAAF Eighth Air Force aircraft drop leaflets over the country.
FRANCE: In the U.S. Third Army’s XX Corps area, the 357th Infantry Regiment of the 90th Infantry Division, employing four small teams, again attempts in vain to take Hotel de Ville in Maizières-lês-Metz.
In the U.S. Seventh Army’s VI Corps area, the 3d Infantry Division presses slowly in on St Die against heavy fire. The 36th Infantry Division’s isolated and surrounded battalion (1st Battalion, 141st Infantry Regiment) is too weak to break out, but some progress toward it is made by troops of the 442d Infantry Regiment (Nisei). First efforts to drop supplies by air fail. Subsequent attempts achieve some success.
In the French First Army area, General Jean Lattre de Tassigny, commander of the First Army, at conference with Lieutenant General Jacob Devers, Commanding General Sixth Army Group, at Vittel, presents his plan for offensive toward Belfort and gains Devers’ approval. The French drive is to coincide with general Allied offensive in November and is to open on the 13th.
The USAAF XII Tactical Air Command flies supply dropping missions (to VI Corps near Saint-Die).
GERMANY: Martin Bormann, Head of the Nazi Party Chancellery and private secretary of Chancellor Adolf Hitler, writes to Alfred Rosenberg, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, informing him that Hitler has rejected the idea of using clergymen for forced labor.
During the night of 27/28 October, RAF Bomber Command Mosquitos bomb seven cities without loss: 58 hit Berlin, three each attack Pforzheim and Rheine, two each bomb Dusseldorf and Essen, and one each hit Mannheim and Schweinfurt.
U-3015 launched.
U-2539 laid down.
HUNGARY: Troops of the Soviet Fourth Ukrainian Front take Ungvar (Uzhorod) on the northeastern border. This completes the Soviet conquest of Carpatho-Ukraine (Ruthenia before March 1939).
LATVIA: A renewed Soviet attacks begins.
ITALY: As winter sets in the Allied advance bogs down.
In the U.S. Fifth Army’s British XIII Corps area, the 26th Armoured Brigade Group, following up the German withdrawal on the right flank of the corps, occupies Rocca St. Casciano, on Highway 67.
In the British Eighth Army’s Polish II Corps area, elements of the 5th Kresowa Division recapture Predappio Nuovo. In the V Corps area, the Indian 10th Division crosses additional elements over the Ronco River during the night of 27/28 October. In the Canadian I Corps area, plans to relieve the Canadian 1st Division and 5th Armoured Division cannot be carried out at this time because of weather conditions. Advance elements of the corps across the Bevano River in the coastal sector are withdrawn.
Weather curtails operations of the USAAF Twelfth Air Force; fighter-bombers on armed reconnaissance in the Genoa-Novi Ligure-Turin area hit communications and transportation targets.
There is one sing they do not - by order - play on the British Forces Broadcasting Service in Italy. The German Lili Marlene remains top of the Eighth Army hit parade, with Glenn Miller running a close second. The frowned-upon song (sung to the tune of Lili Marlene) is based on the alleged, and since denied, remark by a British MP, Lady (Nancy) Astor, and runs:
CSPAN program yesterday about Battle of Leyte Gulf:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?321814-1/discussion-1944-naval-battle-leyte-gulf
We are the D-Day dodgers,
out in Italy.
- always on the vino,
always on the spree;
Eighth Army scroungers
and their tanks.
We live in Rome among the Yanks.
We are the D-Day dodgers,
In Sunny Italy.
Sunny Italy it is not. Once again the Eighth Army is faced with a winter which has allied itself with the Germans, while west of the Apennines the US Fifth Army today called off its latest offensive. Despite huge casualty lists - more than 20,000 men have been killed, wounded or taken prisoner since Cassino - the Allied armies here have had little share in the world headlines since the Anzio landings, and are feeling forgotten.
I got careless and omitted the part of the etherington entry that includes the lyrics you posted. Here is the rest of the story:
There is one sing they do not - by order - play on the British Forces Broadcasting Service in Italy. The German Lili Marlene remains top of the Eighth Army hit parade, with Glenn Miller running a close second. The frowned-upon song (sung to the tune of Lili Marlene) is based on the alleged, and since denied, remark by a British MP, Lady (Nancy) Astor, and runs:
We are the D-Day dodgers,
out in Italy.
- always on the vino,
always on the spree;
Eighth Army scroungers
and their tanks.
We live in Rome among the Yanks.
We are the D-Day dodgers,
In Sunny Italy.
Sunny Italy it is not. Once again the Eighth Army is faced with a winter which has allied itself with the Germans, while west of the Apennines the US Fifth Army today called off its latest offensive. Despite huge casualty lists - more than 20,000 men have been killed, wounded or taken prisoner since Cassino - the Allied armies here have had little share in the world headlines since the Anzio landings, and are feeling forgotten.
INDIA: Headquarters USAAF Tenth Air Force is reassigned from Army Air Forces, India-Burma Sector to Army Air Forces, India-Burma Theater.
CHINA: The Japanese renew their offensive to take U.S. air bases in eastern China (Operation ICHIGO), heading toward Kweilin and Liuchow.
USAAF Fourteenth Air Force fighters bomb and strafe the town of Mengmao and nearby hill positions, river traffic, troops, and horses from Tanchuk to Tengyun, bridges northeast of Hsinganhsien, the town of Kaotienhsu, troops in the Kweilin area, rail traffic west of Puchi, and airfields at Siangtan and Changsha.
VOLCANO ISLANDS: During the night of 27/28 October, a USAAF Seventh Air Force B-24 Liberator on a snooper mission hits Iwo Jima.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Buri Airfield is captured by the US 7th Division on Leyte. Admiral Shermans task group of US TF 38 strikes Japanese shipping around Luzon, Philippine Islands. Strikes are also sent against Luzon Island. The battleship, USS California is damaged by the Japanese.
In the U.S. Sixth Army’s X Corps area on Leyte, the 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, advances to the Mudburon River without opposition. After night-long shelling of Pastrana, the 19th Infantry Regiment enters the town and mops up. In the XXIV Corps area, the 382d Infantry Regiment of the 96th Infantry Division again attacks Tabontabon. Two battalions push through the northwestern part of the town to positions about 1 mile (1,6 kilometers) to the northwest, but a battalion is held up in the town and establishes a night perimeter in center of it. The 383d Infantry Regiment patrols in the vicinity of San Vicente and San Vicente Hill in an effort to locate Japanese positions. The 32d Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, against surprisingly light resistance, clears Buri airstrip by 1130 hours. The 17th Infantry Regiment, reinforced by a platoon of engineers to repair bridges, continues a drive on Dagami, reaching positions some 2,200 yards
(2 012 meters) south of the town.
Task Group 38.3 (Rear Admiral Frederick C. Sherman) and TG 38.4 (Rear Admiral Ralph E. Davison) attack Japanese ships and installations in the Visaya Islands and the northern Luzon area.
Off Leyte, battleship USS California (BB-44) is damaged by strafing; submarine chaser (rescue) PCER-848 is damaged by horizontal bomber; and motor torpedo boat PT-523 is damaged by dive bomber. U.S. freighter SS Benjamin Ide Wheeler is damaged by a kamikaze that crashes the ship, killing one merchant sailor and one of the 27-man Armed Guard (whose heavy gunfire damages the inbound suicider) and sets fire to the gasoline cargo; salvage ship USS Cable (ARS-19) comes alongside and extinguishes the blaze while some of the ship’s complement and passengers are transferred temporarily to nearby amphibious command ship USS Wasatch (AGC-9).
USN submarine USS Nautilus (SS-168) lands men and supplies on the east coast of Luzon.
EAST INDIES: USAAF Far East Air Forces B-24 Liberators attack Malili and Palopo on Celebes Island.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Australian Beauforts again attack Rabaul on New Britain Islands concentrating on targets in the northern part of town.
CAROLINE ISLANDS: Two USAAF Seventh Air Force B-24 Liberators on armed reconnaissance from Saipan Island bomb Yap Island.
PACIFIC OCEAN:
At 0400 hours, two USN submarines sink Japanese merchant vessels. In the East China Sea, USS Burrfish (SS-312) sinks a cargo ship about 185 nautical miles (343 kilometers) north-northeast of Naha, Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, in position 29.08N, 128.45E. In the South China Sea, USS Bergall (SS-320) sinks an oiler and a fleet tanker about 89 nautical miles (165 kilometers) north-northeast of Jesselton, British North Borneo, in position 07.17N, 116.45E. (Skip Guidry)
Navy carrier-based planes sink destroyers HIJMS Fujinami and Shiranui about 29 nautical miles (54 kilometers) north-northwest of Roxas, Panay, Philippine Islands,, in position 12.00N, 122.30E.
In the Camotes Sea, over 40 USAAF Far East Air Forces fighter-bombers, operating in three waves, hit shipping off Cebu Island and west of Mactan Island in the Philippine Islands. They sink a Japanese motor sail ship off Mactan Island.
CANADA: Frigate HMCS Fort Erie commissioned.
U.S.A.:
Destroyer USS Henderson laid down Seattle, Washington.
Destroyer minelayer USS Tolman commissioned.
Destroyer USS Duncan launched.
Coast Guard-manned Army vessel FS-319 was commissioned at New York with LTJG Sterling M. Anderson, USCG, as her first commanding officer. She departed New York on 11 December 1944 for the Southwest Pacific where she operated at Finschhafen, Auguson, etc., during the war.
"Admiral Miklós Horthy led Hungary's authoritarian government during much of the war.
Although he was an antisemite, the Germans considered Horthy soft on Jewish issues.
For example, he opposed the ghettoization of Hungary's Jews.
Finally, when he began armistice overtures to the Soviets in the fall of 1944, the German-backed Arrow Cross movement overthrew his government, establishing a Fascist and viciously antisemitic dictatorship."
"On October 15, 1944, the Hungarian Fascist organization Arrow Cross staged a coup, with German support, against the government of Admiral Miklós Horthy, whom the Arrow Cross branded as 'a hireling of the Jews and a traitor to his country.'
The Nazis supported the new government because of the violent antisemitism of its leadership.
This photograph shows the swearing in of Ferenc Szálasi, chief of the Arrow Cross movement, as Hungary's new leader."
"After the October 15 coup, the Arrow Cross government gave free rein to the Hungarian people's long-standing hatred of Jews.
Here we see Arrow Cross members beating Jews in Budapest's Kalman Tisza's square.
A series of violent actions against Budapest's Jewish population characterized the days after the Arrow Cross takeover.
The SS and Arrow Cross rounded up thousands of Jews.
However, international protests forced the Hungarian government to release the Jews, who escaped (at least temporarily) almost certain death."
Both my Dad and an uncle were Dodgers. Another uncle landed on D-day and was very badly wounded ( he was the only one of 20 to survive when ,during the Battle of the Schelde , while sheltering in a basement , a shell came through the ceiling.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXl_xzqIRgk
Wow. A different NY Times than we see today. I cannot imagine seeing the NYT today using the term “enemy”...unless they are talking about conservatives, or Fox News. Also, referring to “our planes”.
How far they have fallen.
“The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour” By James D. Hornfischer (2008, Bantam) ebook now on sale for $1.99:
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Stand-Tin-Sailors-Extraordinary-ebook/dp/B001L83PM0/
The Canadians are doing some very hard fighting right now in the Scheldt. But it is critical to the war effort to open the port of Antwerp to receive Allied supplies.
Yes, I know. I have been thinking a lot of my Uncle for the last few days. When they found him his face was badly burnt, his nose gone. They said only the new drug, penicillin, saved his life. There was a doctor in England who did surgery on burnt pilots , rebuilding their faces. My Uncle underwent 22 surgeries before he said no more. He came home ,raised his family , and ran the post office and variety store in a small town just outside Kitchener-Waterloo Ontario.
For us kids he looked normal, he was just our Uncle. But I now also know what a man , a very brave man, he really was.
<>Battle of Leyte Gulf:<>
Thanks for posting, to watch later.
I read his book on the naval battles around Guadalcanal. It was a close run thing, in which the Jap navy should have won.
What a blessing your uncle came home and had a full life. So many uncles didn’t.
Rarely would I sit through an hour-long C-SPAN presentation, but that one was well worth it. Thanks for the link.
I’ve never heard the term “Dodger” used except for the L.A. Dodgers. What’s a “Dodger”?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
