Posted on 05/05/2015 4:28:55 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
#1 - “My Dreams are Getting Better All the Time” - Les Brown, with Doris Day
#2 - “Candy” - Johnny Mercer, with Jo Stafford and the Pied Pipers
#3 – “There! I’ve Said It Again” – Vaughn Monroe
#4 – “Sentimental Journey” – Les Brown, with Doris Day
#5 - “Chloe” - Spike Jones, with Red Ingle
#6 - “Dream” - Pied Pipers
#7 - “Caldonia” - Woody Herman
#8 - “I’m Beginning to See the Light” - Harry James, with Kitty Kallen
#8 - “I’m Beginning to See the Light” - Ink Spots, with Ella Fitzgerald
#8 – “Laura” – Woody Herman
#9 – “Just A Prayer Away” – Bing Crosby and Ethel Smith
#9 – “Laura” – Freddy Martin
#10 – “My Dreams are Getting Better All the Time” - Johnny Long, with Dick Robertson
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/4/05.htm
May 5th, 1945 (SATURDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Frigate HMCS Carlplace departed Londonderry with escort for a Gibraltar convoy.
EIRE: A Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88G-6 night fighter of I/NJG-3 lands in Eire. According to the pilot, the squadron CO, based in Denmark, told his pilots that each man could fly his aircraft, with full tanks and any friends who were willing, to any country he chose. The CO and some pilots headed for Sweden, others for Spain. Four crews chose Ireland and flew in formation. Over Manchester one was shot down, and in foul weather, the other two disappeared.
GERMANY: German Army Group G, under General Hausser, surrenders unconditionally to US forces in at Haar in Bavaria.
Third US Army’s 11th Armored Division liberates Mauthausen concentration camp. (Greg Canellis)
One of the prisoners freed today is Simon Wiesenthal, a Jew, he is found lying helplessly in a barracks surrounded by the dead and weighing less than 45Kg. Wiesenthal barely survived to be liberated by an American armoured unit. Wiesenthal’s first documentation of the atrocities committed by the Nazi guards survives in volumes of sketches he drew while imprisoned. “I drew what I was seeing every day,” said Wiesenthal. “I wanted to leave something behind to document the horrors I saw every day.”
On the Baltic coast Swinemunde and Peenemunde, the site of the rocket-weapon research centre that was supposed to win Hitler the war, are captured.
Five German U-boats, including four of the powerful XXI types, were sunk today in an Allied air strike on the Kattegat, just 24 hours after Admiral Dönitz had ordered the U-boats to cease hostilities and return to base. More air raids are planned to ram home the message that the six-year BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC is over; for the second time this century, Germany’s attempt to defeat Britain by crippling its merchant fleet had failed. This time the U-boats sank more merchant ships, although their combined tonnage was less. Some 175 Allied warships, mostly British, were also lost; but so were 784 of Germany’s 1,162 U-boats.
Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov informs U.S. Secretary of State Stettinius that the Red Army has arrested 16 Polish peace negotiators who had met with a Soviet army colonel near Warsaw back in March. When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill learns of the Soviet double-cross, he reacts in alarm, stating, “There is no doubt that the publication in detail of this event? would produce a primary change in the entire structure of world forces.”
Churchill, fearing that the Russian forces were already beginning to exact retribution for losses suffered during the war (the Polish negotiators had been charged with “causing the death of 200 Red Army officers”), sent a telegram to President Harry Truman to express his concern that Russian demands of reparations from Germany, and the possibility of ongoing Russian occupation of Central and Eastern Europe, “constitutes an event in the history of Europe to which there has been no parallel.” Churchill clearly foresaw the “Iron Curtain” beginning to drop. Consequently, he sent a “holding force” to Denmark to cut off any farther westward advance by Soviet troops.
The German airline Lufthansa suspends all operations due to the destruction of German airports by Allied aircraft. The last flight is between Oslo, Norway and Flensburg, Germany.
Starting yesterday and finishing today, the US Army’s 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, (”Curahee”) of the 101st Airborne ‘Screaming Eagles’ Division, under Col. Robert Sink, capture Hitler’s fortified military complex on the Obersalzburg, the ‘Berghof’. (Jay Stone)
Jay adds: My battalion, the 321st Glider Field Artillery, in direct support of the 506th Parachute Infantry, entered Berchtesgaden on May 5, 1945. Captain Skinner was my battery commander when I joined the battalion. After Normandy there was a shakeup among the officers and he was assigned as a liaison officer. He was one of the many fine leaders in the battalion and did an excellent job in both assignments. In the early 80’s he was fishing from his boat in the Cayman Islands and never returned.
Jays pictures: www.arkansasmercury.com/wjs1.jpg
www.arkansasmercury.com/wjs2.jpg
The view today.
http://www.eagles-nest-tours.com/page3.htm
When U-349 was scuttled, Obermaschinist Wilhelm Hegenbarth set the charges off and refused to leave the boat.
U-579 sunk in the Kattegat east of Aarhus, in approximate position 56.10N, 11.04E, by depth charges from an RAF 547 Sqn Liberator.
U-733 scuttled Flensburg Fjord, position 54.48N, 09.49E, after being damaged by bombs and gunfire. Broken up 1948.
U-2367 sank near Schleimünde, in approximate position 55.00N, 11.00E, after a collision with an unidentified German U-boat. Raised in August 1956. Renamed U-Hecht (pike) and served in the German Federal Navy from 1 Oct 1957. Stricken on 30 Sep, 1968 and broken up at Kiel in 1969.
U-2551 sunk near Flensburg Solitude, in position 54.49N, 09.28E Wreck broken up.
U-534 sunk in the Kattegat NW of Helsingör, in position 56.39N, 11.48E, by 10 depth charges from an RAF 86 Sqn Liberator. 3 dead and 49 survivors. Earlier in the action, U-534 shot down an RAF 547 Sqn Liberator. U-534 raised 1995 and now a museum piece at Birkenhead.
U-955 shot down an unknown Liberator aircraft.
AUSTRIA: The French politicians Paul Reynaud and Edouard Daladier, with the French General Maurice Gamelin, the German pastor Martin Niemoller and the former Austria Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, all imprisoned by the Nazis, are set free.
DENMARK: Copenhagen: British paratroopers land after fighting breaks out between Danish civilians and Germans.
NORWAY: The Hopseidet Incident.
Two German submarines U 318 and U 992 broke the surface in Hopsfjorden, Norway late the night of the 4th of May 1945. They continued tor travel on the surface toward Hopseidet. 10 km away from the village the submarines put 30 men ashore, and they returned with a prisoner, a fisherman Ivar ÿye, who would be used as a guide further inland.
This operation was followed by Norwegians ashore. The local policeman in SjÂnes informed The Military Command about the subs approaching Hopseidet. An observation post was situated in the village, and the soldiers and some volunteer civilians got ready for a fight by taking station in a couple of places with view to the shore. (Torstein Saksvik) [Story Continues on the 6th]
CZECHOSLOVAKIA: Prague: The resistance rises in a heavy battle with German SS troops.
Prague: Czech patriots rose against the Germans still occupying Prague today following several spontaneous revolts against the Nazis in other parts of the country. Street fighting is raging in the streets of the Czech capital. The situation tonight is that the patriots hold most of the city, but the Germans remain in control of several strongpoints while tanks and other Wehrmacht units move in from bases outside.
Among the positions held by the Germans is one of the radio stations which is broadcasting repeated claims that “all important military positions are in the hands of the Wehrmacht”. The patriots also control a radio station, and they have been broadcasting desperate appeals to the Allies to come to their rescue.
General Patton’s Third Army is now in Czechoslovakia, and could well make a dash for Prague, but the Russians insist that the Czech capital is their prize. The situation is complicated by the presence in Prague of General Vlasov’s Russian Liberation Army (Russkaya Osvoboditel’naya Armiya, the POA). When the Allies make no reply to the Czech’s plea they turn to General Bunyachenko of the 1st Division of the POA.
Despite yesterday’s armistice resistance against the Russians continues. Army Group Centre conducts a fighting withdrawal in Czechoslovakia with bitter fighting near Olmutz.
ITALY: Genoa: US forces seize the poet Ezra Pound, wanted on charges of treason.
AEGEAN SEA: Minesweeping trawler HMS Coriolanus mined and sunk.
JAPAN: Operation STARVATION, the mining of Japanese waters by Twentieth Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortresses, continues. During the night, 86 B-29s plant mines in eight fields in the Inland Sea and off four ports. At Tokuyama, Aki-nada, Bingo-nada, and Shodo-shima-Bisan Seto, the patterns were good, but at four port areas — Nagoya, Kobe-Osaka, Hiroshima-Kure, and Tokyo — results were less satisfactory.
After a bombing mission over southern Japan, the crew of a B-29 bomber had to bale out after being rammed by a Japanese suicide plane. The B-29 crashed near the town of Takete. After landing, the crew were taken into custody and transported to Kyushu University in Fukuoka about one hundred miles north of Nagasaki.
In the university’s anatomy department they were subjected to the most horrible medical experiments imaginable. One prisoner was shot in the stomach so that Japanese surgeons could get practice at removing bullets. Amputations on legs and arms were practised while the victims were still alive. One was injected with sea water in an experiment to find out if sea water could be substituted for saline solution.
One badly wounded American, thinking he was going to be treated for his wound, was anaesthetized and woke up to find that one of his lungs had been removed. He died shortly after. Others had part of the liver removed to see if they could still live.
Only one airman, the pilot of the B-29, Captain Marvin Watkins, was taken to Tokyo for interrogation but survived the war. The other eight all died at Fukuoka.
After the war, twenty three doctors and hospital staff were arrested, tried and found guilty on various charges by the Allied War Crimes Trials held at Yokohama. Five were sentenced to death, the others to terms of imprisonment. When the Korean war started in June, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur reduced most of the sentences. The death sentences were never carried out. All were released by 1958. This was the only instance where Americans were used in bizarre medical experiments in WW11, except perhaps at Mukden. (Denis Peck)
Okinawa: The destroyer USS Ingraham comes under concerted air attack, and shoots down four Japanese planes, before a fifth crashed into the ship above the waterline on the port side, its bomb exploding in the generator room. With only one gun operative, and with 51 casualties aboard, Ingraham retires to Hunter’s Point, California, for repairs. (Ron Babuka)
U.S.A.: In the only fatal attack of its kind during World War II, a Japanese balloon bomb exploded on Gearhart Mountain in Oregon, killing the pregnant wife of a minister and five children. It exploded when a 13-year-old girl (Joan Patzke) attempted to pull the balloon from a tree during a church group picnic in the woods near Bly, Oregon. Having taken some local children on an outing, Reverend Archie Mitchell watched in horror as his pregnant wife, Elsie Mitchell, and five children who accompanied them (ages 11 to 14) were killed. The minister escaped by luck of being a short distance behind. (Dave Shirlaw & Tony diGuigno)
The US War Department announces that 400,000 troops will remain in Europe as occupation forces. 2 million will be discharged leaving 6 million for the attack on Japan.
San Francisco: British and American delegates to the “United Nations” conference were horrified today when Molotov revealed that 16 Polish negotiators had been arrested by the Russians on charges of “diversionary activities against the Red Army.” The western Allies consider that most of these men - General Okulicki, the successor to General Bor-Komorowski as chief of the Polish Home Army, and the leaders of the main political parties - should have been brought from Poland for consultation on the formation of the new Polish government. Mr. Churchill is furious at what he describes as “the perfidy” by which the Poles were enticed in Russia.
Aircraft carrier USS Kearsarge launched.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 1740, the unescorted Black Point was struck by a torpedo from U-853 in the stern, while proceeding in fog. The explosion carried away the aftermost forty feet of the ship aft of the #5 hold. The vessel quickly began to sink by the stern about five miles southeast of Point Judith, Rhode Island. The most of the eight officers, 33 crewmen and five armed guards (the ship was armed with one 6pdr and two .30cal guns) abandoned ship in two boats and a raft. The Black Point capsized and all but the bow disappeared beneath the water 25 minutes after the torpedo struck. Eleven crewmen and one armed guard (W.L. Whitson Lloyd USNR) died. 17 men on a raft were picked up by the Yugoslavian steam merchant Karmen and two men by the Norwegian steam merchant Scandinavia. All were later transferred to a US Coast Guard patrol boat, which brought them to Point Judith. Crash boats from Quonset Point, Rhode Island rescued 15 survivors and landed them at Newport. The Black Point was the last American-flagged ship sunk by a German U-boat. Immediately after the sinking the US Navy searched for U-853 and sank her in the morning of 6 May.
We are nearing the end, my friend.
VE Day is in 3 days and VJ Day a few months away.
This has been an amazing journey. My takeaways have been:
1) We had no idea just how bad the enemy was
2) How much information was published in the papers
3) How close we came to losing
4) How much we gave as a country
5) The degree of difficulty this war was
6) How much life went on during the war
7) How fast it turned against the Nazis starting a week ago
For those of us who have been along for the ride since you started this series it has been fantastic. We were part of history in real time. The stories a few days ago of the liberation of the concentration camps brought tears to my eyes.
From the bottom of my heart to the height of my intellect I thank you for this labor of love!
You are very kind. Thank you. I hope you will be with us until the end in September.
Regarding that bit about the Nazis resisting bitterly in Czechoslovakia — I met a Finnish man who’s grandfather had been a member of SS Division Wiking, who held a large section of the line in Czechoslovakia against the Russians to enable the forces retreating behind them to reach American lines. Apparently were encircled several times but broke out and likewise managed to surrender to the Americans.
>>You are very kind. Thank you. I hope you will be with us until the end in September.<<
Heck yeah — how long has it been? 5 years?
My question will be what will I do in the AM when it ends? Got anything on the Spanish-American war? ;)
If it wasn’t for this series, I would not have even know about the Russo-Fin mini-war, which I followed with great interest.
Man, them Finnish! It was almost like San Diego taking on the entire Pacific Northwest. They lost a bit but won a lot and put the hurt onto the Ruskies.
This has happened at least two other times in our history. The first is when the Confederacy collapsed in 1865, and the second is when the Soviet Union's hold on the Iron Curtain countries collapsed in 1989, to be followed by just as quick a collapse of the USSR itself in 1991. I am beginning to think that, when the time comes--and it will come--that the collapse of Islamofascism will be just as swift, and just as surprising to the people of that time. We have already seen the first hints of this in Egypt; if we didn't have a Chamberlain as President, we would see it more quickly elsewhere.
My boss’s dad was serving in the German army on the Eastern Front at this time. They shot their commanding officer and fled West to surrender to the Americans. He later went on to serve with the US Army in Korea.
He lives in a nearby Assisted Living facility.
I am surprised that even in May 1945, the Japanese were still on the offensive in China - deep in Szechuan and Hubei Provinces, no less.
Makes me realize, if it wasn’t for the atom bomb, the Japanese probably would have controlled China for the next 50 years.
This is without a doubt the most incredible educational journey I’ve ever been on. I also thank Homer, and everyone involved for doing this. To see the stories in the newspaper and then to read the actual source material;everything from haikus by the Japanese commander at the first battle of Savo Island to German army maps to telegrams from Stalin has been amazing. Thanks to all again and I agree what am I going to do in September.
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