Posted on 03/01/2015 4:46:10 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
March 1st, 1945 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Convoy RA-64 arrived at the Clyde.
GERMANY: East Prussia: Soviet troops under Zhukov push on to Kolberg.
US troops capture Mönchen-Gladbach and Neuss.
Pte James Stokes (b.1915), King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, seized two buildings and 17 prisoners before he was fatally wounded. (Victoria Cross)
Maj. Frederick Alfred Tilston (b.1906), Canadian Army, led an attack, silencing a machine gun and refusing treatment for his severe wounds until sure the position was secure. (Victoria Cross)
U-3044, U-4712 launched.
U-4710 laid down.
U-2541, U-3035 commissioned.
FINLAND: Finland declares that state of war has existed with Germany and Japan since 15 September 1944. Finns had considered already in the previous fall declaring war on Germany, but back then USSR had not considered it necessary, even though Finns and Germans are fighting active war in northern Finland. But in February 1945 Finns are informed that nations who had declared war on the Axis Powers at the latest on 1 March 1945 will be invited to the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco. While it’s not clear whether the former enemies will be invited, Finnish cabinet decides that a formal state of war gives Finland the option to demand war reparations from Germany in any future peace conference.
JAPAN: The US 5th Fleet carriers raid Okinawa.
The aircraft of Task Force 58 and Fifth Fleet surface ships bombard several islands in the Ryuku Islands especially Okinawa. At the end of the day, TF 58 retires to Ulithi Atoll in the Caroline Islands.
TSUBAME, IJN, Japanese Escort. Sunk by USN carrier aircraft form TF38 at Ishigaki, Sakishima Gunto.
MANAZURU, IJN, Japanese Escort. Sunk off Okinawa by US carrier aircraft from TF38
(James Paterson)
IWO JIMA: Private James Trimble III, a former baseball star in the US, dies while on a hazardous scouting mission. (Mike Yared)
CANADA: Destroyer HMCS Columbia paid off.
U.S.A.: President Roosevelt, back from the Yalta Conference, proclaimed the meeting a success as he addressed a joint session of Congress.
Submarine USS Corsair laid down.
Destroyer USS Hugh Purvis commissioned.
The USAAF 477th Bombardment Group begins moving by train to Freeman Field, Indiana from Godman Airfield, Kentucky. Word gets back to the remaining African-American officers that Colonel Selway had created two separate officers’ clubs at Freeman: Club Number One for use by “trainees,” all of whom are black; and Club Number Two for use by “instructors,” all of whom are white. Led by Second Lieutenant Coleman A. Young, the future mayor of Detroit and an experienced labour organiser, a group of black officers still at Godman decided on a plan of action to challenge the de facto segregation at Freeman as soon as they arrived there.
There had already been an attempt to integrate Club Number Two on March 10, when two groups of black officers entered it and were refused service; but the officers still at Godman decided to push the issue to the point of arrest if necessary. (William L. Howard)
Patton seems full of excuses these days. 3rd Army needs to get the lead out and catch up with the 1st and 9th.
“Maj. Frederick Alfred Tilston (b.1906), Canadian Army, led an attack, silencing a machine gun and refusing treatment for his severe wounds until sure the position was secure. (Victoria Cross)”
In the article above Goebbels is telling the Germans that the Canadiens are deserting by the thousands. Is it possible Little Joe isn’t telling the truth?
President Returns Home in ‘Great’ Health; ‘He Is in Grand Spirits,’ Secretary Reports – 13
Times printing BS as usual. FDR will be dead in 6 weeks
My father worked on making the USS Missouri wheel chair accessible for FDR's trip to Yalta. He said his biggest shock was when he saw the President being carried on board looking half dead.
"This jacket belonged to William Luksenburg, a Holocaust survivor.
After his parents were deported to Auschwitz in 1942, Luksenburg was sent to one of Auschwitz's satellite camps.
By January 1945 he had been shipped to Flossenbürg and then Regensburg, Germany, where he worked on the railroad.
As the end of the war drew near, Luksenburg survived a death march.
An American soldier who found Luksenburg's jacket and buried it to avoid the spread of disease dug it up four months later and kept it as a 'souvenir.' "
"Nazi exploitation of their victims extended beyond plundered hair and dental gold.
It included even the ashes of the murdered.
At some camps, random ashes were collected in urns and sold to grieving survivors as the remains of specific loved ones.
This urn and barrel of ash were discovered at the Flossenbürg, Germany, concentration camp, where commandant Hans Vogel made tidy sums from the deception."
"These Polish women partisan soldiers had been captured by the Germans in the battle for Warsaw in the fall of 1944.
The women were liberated from German prisoner-of-war camps by Polish troops near Emden, Germany.
Some of the liberators found their wives here.
The Germans recognized some rights for West European soldiers who became POWs.
The Nazis treated gentile partisans less well, and accorded no rights at all to Jewish civilians."
The President looked rough even in the staged pictures from Yalta.
SHAEF’s primary objective right now is the Ruhr, which gives 1st and Ninth Armies the main show. Not to worry, you’ll soon see Third Army take off again. You can’t keep George still for long.
1800: An army travels on its stomach.
1945: An army travels on its gas tank.
The Rhine is the next big obstacle. Let’s see, is there a movie that depicts this?
The Bridge at Remmagen.
Wait! It doesn’t happen for another 6 days. My bad.
It’s been a while since I saw “The Bridge at Remagen.” My recollection is that it wasn’t a particularly good movie. But as I said, it’s been a while.
Someone’s likely to get shot for that...
Your recollection is pretty good. It wasn’t a very good movie.
It was, however, a significant event in the ETO.
Is that a good movie?
I don’t think so. Patton is chomping at the bit. When Patton slows down it almost always is not the enemy but the Allies in rearranging priorities and holding him up. Patton knows exactly what he wants to do to the Nazis and that “Paper-Hanging SOB in Berlin” - his complaints are much more about getting the supplies he needs to do what he wants to do.
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