Posted on 01/03/2011 4:44:19 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
B.H. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/jan41/f03jan41.htm
Allies attack Bardia
Friday, January 3, 1941 www.onwar.com
In North Africa... The Allied force, renamed 13th Corps, has been increased by the arrival of the 6th Australian Division to replace the 4th Indian Division previously withdrawn to the Sudan. The new force leads the attack on Bardia which now begins. The 16th and 17th Brigades provide the assault units. They have considerable tank and artillery support. In addition three battleships of the Mediterranean Fleet also shell the Italian positions. The attack goes in against the west and southwest fortress and progress is very rapid. Around 30,000 prisoners are taken in the first 24 hours.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/03.htm
January 3rd, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM:
Unity Mitford returns home via Switzerland after attempting suicide in the ‘Englischer Garten’ in Munich. She had gone to Germany when Nazism attracted many English admirers. Aged 24, she is a member of the family of Lord Redesdale. She became known as the ‘Storm Trooper Maiden’ in the ‘Osteria Bavaria’ restaurant in Munch after Hitler invited her to his table.
No. 10 Sqn. RAAF is assigned to No. 15 Group RAF Coastal Command. (Jack McKillop)
Submarine HMS Taku commissioned. (DS)
NORTH SEA: SS Svartön sunk by U-58 57.48N, 01.47W - Grid AN 1866. (DS)
GERMANY: U-143 and U-753 are laid down. (DS)
FINLAND: The government claims to have destroyed 400 Russian tanks and brought down 150 planes since the fighting began.
BALTIC SEA: Soviet submarine S-2 struck a mine at Märket and sinks. (DS)
SPAIN: Cadiz: U-25 becomes the first Axis submarine to take advantage of Spains’ offer to allow provisioning and refuelling in its ports. It ties up along the German freighter THALIA. After four hours of taking supplies off the merchant ship, U-25 returns to sea. (Russell Folsom)(206 p.118)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 491 January 3, 1941
Operation Compass. Assault on Bardia, Libya, begins at 5.30 AM with an artillery barrage. At 6 AM, Australian 6th Division infantry attacks from the West, blasting through the perimeter wire with Bangalore torpedoes and filling in antitank ditches. At 6.50 AM, 23 Matilda tanks of British 7th Royal Tank Regiment sweep in, North and South, helping the infantry flank a succession of Italian ‘posts’ (open concrete machinegun and antitank gun pits). Allies drive a wedge 2 miles deep & 7 miles wide into the Italian defenses, taking 8,000 Italian prisoners. From 8.10 to 8.55 AM, battleships HMS Warspite, Valiant & Barham and escort destroyers fire 244 15-inch, 270 6-inch and 240 4.5-inch shells at the ‘posts’, spotted by aircraft from HMS Illustrious. Monitor HMS Terror and gunboats HMS Ladybird & Aphis continue the bombardment, collapsing a cliff with emplaced Italian artillery. Picking off the ‘posts’ continues all night with heavy fighting. MAP
RAF bombs Bremen and the Kiel Canal, Germany, scoring a direct hit on the Kiel Canal Bridge which collapses on Finnish steamer Yrsa.
Overnight, Luftwaffe bombs Bristol for 12 hours, targeting the docks and railway station (149 civilians killed, 351 injured), destroying a granary on Princes Wharf containing 8,000 tons of grain. A 4,000 lb bomb which fails to explode is nicknamed ‘Satan’ by the people of Bristol and will be displayed in the victory parade in London in 1945.
Dublin Bombed????
WOW didnt know that...so how come they remained neutral???
I will answer my own question...because they hate the British so much.
Happy New Year Homer. Your post continue to be fascinating to read with hindsight available to us.
WOW didnt know that...so how come they remained neutral???
I will answer my own question...because they hate the British so much
In fact over 45,000 citizens of Eire served in the British military during WW II. In total more served than those from Northern Ireland.
It's difficult to keep the Irish out of a good fight!
The government of Ireland was pretty determined not to get drawn into another world war helping the British. Around 50,000 Irishmen had died in the First World War and the hostility towards Britain and their conscription of Irish troops during that fight was a contributor to the Irish War for Independence that immediately followed World War I.
The war for independence left Ireland partitioned with Northern Ireland remaining part of the British Empire. The British wanted Ireland to come in on their side (so they could use their port facilities) so badly that they even went as far as to make a secret offer in June of 1940 to commit to a unified Ireland after the war, thus ceding Northern Ireland back to the Free Irish State.
The Taoiseach of Ireland, Eamon de Valera responded that they would commit only to neutrality and would only entertain entering the war on Britain’s side if there was a public declaration of Irish reunification.
So at least from a governmental side, they were so committed to neutrality that they even passed on an opportunity to get Ireland reunified to maintain it. Of course that didn’t stop those Irishmen who went to England to get in on a good fight.
(( ping ))
...to the story on page 4 about five Marines arrested in a cabaret for getting in a brawl. The Marine commander is standing up for his men with a hearty “in-your-face” to the Japanese. Nowadays, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Marine commander apologizing and begging forgiveness as he recommends court martial for the men.
This was in 1941. There’s no way of knowing if these Marines ended up on Iwo Jima or any of the other brutal battlegrounds in the area.
By beginning of 1941, Nazi brutality has already gone beyond historical precidents, but is almost as nothing compared to what will soon be coming.
As of "today" fewer than 1% of the six million Jews who will die -- to mention nothing of millions of other civilians -- have so far perished.
By this time "next year," that percent will be much higher.
The problem they have is they are about to re-inherit a large number of Jews they had already gotten rid of. This along with the ones in Western Europe they re-acquired (though not as numerous) puts them right back to where they started. The Madagascar idea has already been shelved since they cant get a firm enough hold of the sea to make that viable. In their mind anyway, there are some pretty twisted ideas already at work.
The T4 program is moving into the existing camps as the 14f13 program to get rid of “excess” prisoner, specifically those who are “seriously ill”. Many list the starting date for the 14f13 program as sometime in early 1941 when the Concentration Camp Inspectorate assigned it the 14f13 reference number (Other numbers were assigned for different causes like 14f1 designated natural death, 14f2 was suicide or accidental death). However, Friedrich Mennecke’s testimony at Nuremberg states that as early as the summer of 1940 doctors from the T4 program were sent to concentration camps to “evaluate prisoners”. This at the very least was the precursor to medical killing in the camps.
When I saw that photo it really gave me pause because, as I recall, the scene with the ghetto wall was recreated faithfully in the movie "The Piano Player." I watched that on Cougar's recommendation back in the fall of 2009 (1939) since he knew a Warsaw survivor who vouched for its accuracy. It was a grueling film to watch but I still recommend it in my turn.
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