William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Posted on 06/28/2011 5:57:08 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
#1 - “My Sister And I” - Jimmy Dorsey, with Bob Eberly
#2 – “The Hut-Sut Song” – Freddy Martin, With Eddie Stone
#3 - “Daddy” - Sammy Kaye, with the Kaye Choir
#4 - “Maria Elena” - Jimmy Dorsey, with Bob Eberly
#5 - “Intermezzo” – Wayne King
#6 – “Green Eyes” - Jimmy Dorsey, with Bob Eberly and Helen O’Connell
#7 - “I’ll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time” – The Andrews Sisters
#8 - “Amapola” ((Pretty Little Poppy) - Jimmy Dorsey, with Bob Eberly and Helen O’Connell
#9 - “Maria Elena” – Tony Pastor, with Dorsey Anderson
#10 - “G’Bye Now” – Horace Heidt, with Ronnie Kemper
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/jun41/f28jun41.htm
German infantry cut up pocket
Saturday, June 28, 1941 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... Marching German infantry from the 9th Army (Strauss) and 4th Army (Kluge) link up east of Bialystok by nightfall, cutting off the Soviet forces concentrated in the Bialystok pocket from the larger Nowogrodek pocket.
In Washington... The US Army Bill for 1942 is passed by Congress.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/28.htm
June 28th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: Escort carrier HMS Chaser laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
ALBANIA: Tirana: Albania declares war on the USSR.
U.S.S.R.: Finnish troops push towards Murmansk. A joint Finish-German attack starts on 29 June at 3 am. The attackers are German 2nd and 3rd Mountain Divisions of General Dietl’s Mountain Corps and Finnish Detachment Petsamo (Maj. Pennanen) which protects the attack’s right flank. Soviet resistance is initially quite light and the Finns’ and 2nd Div.’s advance is rapid. (Mikko Härmeinen)
Kovno, LITHUANIA: Local police and freed convicts beat hundreds of Jews to death.
The following Soviet submarines are lost:
S-10 Baltic Fleet Danzig Bay (sunk by German MTBs)
M-99 Baltic Fleet off Hiiumaa Island (mined in Gulf of Finland)
(Mike Yared)(146 and 147)
FINLAND: Finnish ship Vetehinen in minelaying operations at Estonian coast. (Dave Shirlaw)
SYRIA: After withstanding French counter-attacks all day and without reinforcements (being presumed lost) a company of 2/3 Bn is forced off the summit of the Jebel Mazar (dominating the Damascus-Beirut road). Australian patrols find mountain-top positions of 11/6 Bn FFL and I/17 Senegalese north of Jezzine abandoned after days of intense artillery fire. Over Palmyra nine Tomahawks of 3 Sqn RAAF claim six French aircraft shot down, three by Flt-Lt A. C. Rawlinson. Glubb Pasha’s Arab Legion captures Seba Biyar to secure communications of British force besieging Palmyra. 21st Indian Bde (10 Ind Div) enters Syria from Iraq. They advance along the Euphrates but are delayed by French air attacks, dust and shortage of petrol and water. (Michael Alexander)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Hart moves his quarters ashore from USS HOUSTON.
U.S.A.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the papers to create the Office of Scientific Research and Development. Included in its organization are the National defence Research Committee and the newly established Committee on Medical Research. (Jack McKillop)
In the second and final game of the series in Shibe Park, Philadelphia, New York Yankee’s center fielder Joe DiMaggio goes 2-for-5 (single and double) against Philadelphia Athletics’ pitchers Johnny Babich and Lum Harris. DiMaggio’s hitting streak now stands at 40-games. (Jack McKillop)
Submarines USS Wahoo and Whale laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0207, the unescorted Pluto was torpedoed by U-146 and sank after 30 minutes about 100 miles NNW of Butt of Lewis. The ship had been stopped in the North Atlantic by HMS Suffolk and was first sent to Iceland with ten Royal Marines on board and then to Kirkwall. HMS Northern Duke rescued 26 crewmembers and the ten marines. (Dave Shirlaw)
I rather like the smaller item on the Senate voting a “record” $10B for the Army. By today’s standards that is chump change, and is spent in any given hour on any given day by our “leaders.”
The Japanese had also got themselves thoroughly clobbered a couple of years before by the Red Army in “border incidents” that were actually major battles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol
They were understandably not anxious to stick their hand back into that particular shredder.
That said, a Japanese attack on Siberia might have caused the Axis to win the war.
The Japanese feared Russian Artillery, more than anything else. This is what had eaten them up in the border fights.
They couldn’t even come close to matching it, and they knew it.
With the Siberian resources unreachable, the Imperial High Command turned it’s sights southward, to the Dutch East Indies
The Japanese feared Russian Artillery, more than anything else. This is what had eaten them up in the border fights.
They couldn’t even come close to matching it, and they knew it.
With the Siberian resources unreachable, the Imperial High Command turned it’s sights southward, to the Dutch East Indies
Also massed armor.
Nomonhan was actually the world’s first blitzkrieg, and the Japanese were as outclassed facing the Red Army as the Poles and French/British later were up against the Wehrmacht.
wow, the article about france and the jews is really sobering. not many people speak about that these days.
“3rd Panzer Division’s quartermaster described the supply situation for the division as “very critical””
3rd Panzer is also WAY out in front of everyone else, too, south of, and already past Minsk.
They have already outrun the logistics train, and it was only the refueling done with stocks captured on the 26th when they overran a huge Russian fuel dump that has allowed them to keep moving East to the river.
The last stand for British and Greek forces in Greece is today:
On the night of 28/29 April 1941 during fighting in Greece a column of German armoured forces entered Kalamata. This column, which contained several armoured cars, some 2-inch guns and 3-inch mortars and two 6-inch guns, rapidly converged on a large force of British and New Zealand troops awaiting embarkation on the beach.
When an order to retreat to cover was given Sergeant Hinton shouted, ‘To Hell with this, who will come with me’, and ran to within several yards of the nearest guns. The guns fired, missing him, and he hurled two grenades which completely wiped out the crews. He then came on with bayonet followed by a crowd of New Zealanders.
German troops abandoned the first 6-inch gun and retreated into two houses. Sergeant Hinton smashed the window and then the door of the first house and dealt with the garrison with bayonet. He repeated the performance in the second house and, as a result until overwhelming German forces arrived, the New Zealander held the guns. Sergeant Hinton then fell with a bullet wound through the lower abdomen and was taken prisoner.
Bill Flint, who was with the 18th Battalion of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force, was involved with this fighting. He describes how the final surrender came about the following morning:
They were a sandbag sort of wall – a low wall, and they were sheltering behind them, but they were made of filled sandbags. I saw one bloke – I think he was ASC [Army Service Corps] or something-he’d had no training in bayonet, and he stuck his bayonet at a- obviously German who was behind a sanger – but he didn’t know how to pull it out. There’s a knack in it – you’ve got to jerk it and put your foot in. It was desperate. We realised we had to beat these Germans before we could get away.
It ended up we all sorted – we had about 70 German prisoners right at the wharf edge, and we fully expected to still go – get out – and then a destroyer just zoomed past. It sort of semi-circled and turned and went away and loud-hailed us: ‘Sorry boys, it’s late. We’ve got to go.’
Not long after that we got – word circulated- word of mouth – that the brigadier, whoever he was, a Pommie, I think, had unconditionally surrendered to the Germans, who had offered him annihilation bombing if he didn’t – didn’t surrender immediately and that was something like 7:30 in the morning.
We were to consider ourselves prisoners at 7:30 and in no time flat, the German tanks came in and went right round us in a circle and put swastika flags on top of their tanks and their bombers flew in at just that time and when they saw the flags, they veered off and went away but they were just going to start bombing.
The effects of diverting forces to the Balkans campaign is already being keenly felt in Russia.
On May 1, the Luftwaffe had 483 JU-52’s, which were to be used for remote resupply in Russia, and for the airborne. On Jun 22, they had 252 JU-52’s servicable, as a result of Crete, mostly.
The diverted divisions, the entire Air Fleet directed to the Balkans, and most of all, the delay in the timetable will have dire results later.
From WW2 Day-By-Day:
Greece. During the day, German bombing sinks Greek torpedo boat Kyzikos and 2 steamers. Overnight, 4170 Allied troops are evacuated from the Peloponnese peninsula. 2 German companies (5th Panzer Division) drive into the port of Kalamata and capture the quay as the evacuation begins. Royal Navy warships sail back to sea, having embarked only 322 men.
Most Allied troops are too exhausted to resist but there are several independent small group actions. Sergeant Jack Hinton of 2nd New Zealand Division wins the Victoria Cross for leading an attack to retake the quay, clearing out 3 machine-gun nests and a mortar with grenades and capturing a 6 inch gun. He is shot in the stomach and taken prisoner (he will receive his medal from King George at Buckingham Palace on May 11 1945, after his release).
Allied forces recapture the quay (41 Germans killed, 60 wounded, 100 taken prisoner) but it is too late, the warships are gone.
General Paulus (German Deputy Chief of Staff), who arrived yesterday, orders Rommel to delay his planned attack on Tobruk, reflecting concerns that Rommel is being too reckless. From 6 AM, Luftwaffe bombs Tobruk harbour and defensive positions, to cover the continued buildup of German and Italian troops and armour around the perimeter.
150 miles South of Iceland, U-123 sights convoy HX121 and calls in 5 other submarines. At 4.15 PM, U-552 sinks a tanker, then at 7.25 PM U-96 sinks 2 tankers and a freighter (most crewmen rescued by British rescue ship Zaafaran). U-552 and U-96 are both depth charged by the convoy escorts. U-65 is sunk by depth charges from the British destroyer HMS Douglas (all 50 hands lost).
In the Arabian Sea 1200 miles East of Mogadishu, Somaliland, German armed merchant cruiser Pinguin shells British SS Clan Buchanan (carrying military equipment from USA) from 5 km. Radio signals reporting the attack are sent before the crew of 110 are taken prisoner and is Clan Buchanan scuttled. Royal Navy ships respond to the signals and set out to hunt for Pinguin.
RAF Short Stirlings of No.7 Squadron bomb Emden in a daylight raid.
British minesweeping trawler HMT Caroline sinks on a mine off Milford Haven, Wales (the Dutch crew are all lost).
Overnight, Malta is heavily bombed. Destroyer HMS Encounter is badly damaged in drydock by a bomb penetrating her deck and minesweeper HMS Fermoy is destroyed.
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