http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/2/23.htm
March 23rd, 1945 (FRIDAY)
GERMANY: The British 2nd Army and Canadian 1st Army begin Operation Plunder to cross the Rhine.
Speyer: An infantry unit of the US 12th Armoured Division is tasked with taking the city. As they approach a bridge over the Rhine they were ambushed by anti-tank rockets and machine gun fire. The rocket fire appeared to be coming from a nearby warehouse. Private Edward A. Carter volunteered to lead a four man squad to take out the warehouse, which was 150 yards of open terrain away. Two of Carter’s men were killed almost immediately; the third was severely injured.
Carter alone got within striking distance, but took five bullets and three pieces of shrapnel before he was able to take cover. Carter waited there for two hours, until the Germans, thinking he was dead, sent out an eight-man patrol to make sure. Carter engaged them single-handedly with his Thompson .45, killing six and capturing two, whom he used as human shields to get back to his company. Carter refused immediate medical treatment, and instead took his commanding officer up to an observation spot where he pointed out several German machine gun nests.
General Vietinghoff takes over in Italy from Field Marshall Albert Kesselring.
FRANCE: Paris: de Gaulle announces a limited form of self-government for Indochina, but insists that Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia remain French colonies or protectorates.
EUROPE: The Allied ground offensive across the Rhine River begins. Supporting the offensive are 2,000 bombers of the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces attacking targets in Germany. The Eighth Air Force has 1,206 B -17s and B-24s attacking 14 marshalling yards and other targets. Over 800 Ninth Air Force A-20s, A-26s and B-26s bomb seven communications centers, a factory and targets of opportunity. The Fifteenth Air Force has 658 B-17s and B-24s bombing an oil refinery, three marshalling yards and a tank factory in Austria and a marshalling yard in Czechoslovakia.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-1003 type VIIC/41 is scuttled 8-10 miles north of Inistrahull beacon, Malin Head after ramming with HMCS New Glasgow on the 20th. March. 18 of the U-Boat crew are dead, but 31 of them survive. (Alec Gordon)
FORMOSA: 47 Fifth Air Force B-24s
RYUKYU ISLANDS: A destroyer assigned to Task Group 58.4 rams and sinks a Japanese submarine. Task Force 58 aircraft attack preinvasion targets on Okinawa.
BONIN ISLANDS: Iwo Jima: The USAAF 21st Fighter Group arrives on the island.
ULITHI ATOLL: After much discussion and indecision, Royal Navy aircraft carriers forming Task Force 57 sortie from Ulithi Atoll in the Caroline
Islands to join Task Force 58 supporting the upcoming invasion of Okinawa. The four carriers, HMS Indomitable, HMS Victorious, HMS Illustrious and HMS Indefatigable are formed into Task Group 57.2.
NYT Page 8: Interesting little column about the Churchills discussing the difference between the way the British and Americans wrote their dates in numbers.
I’ve wondered why we do it the way we do, but it occurred to me that the way the date looks when it is written out matches the way we number our dates: (ex. March 23, 2015 is 3/23/2105). Americans have a nasty way of doing things their own way that often actually makes sense.
http://marshallfoundation.org/library/digital-archive/to-general-of-the-army-dwight-d-eisenhower-18/
5-068 To General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, March 23, 1945
1945
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Date: March 23, 1945
Subject: World War II
Collection: Papers of George Catlett Marshall, Volume 5: The Finest Soldier
To General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower
March 23, 1945 Radio No. WARX-57751. Washington, D.C.
Secret
For Eisenhower’s EYES ONLY from Marshall.
Please pass the following from me to General Bradley: “I am filled with admiration over your handling of the operations involved in the development of the Remagen Bridgehead and the clearing of the Saar Basin. I want General Hodges and General Patton and their Corps and Division Commanders to know that their great military successes of the past few weeks have registered a high point in American military achievement. Incidentally I am profoundly impressed with the remarkable logistical support of the Remagen Bridgehead and the supply of Patton’s Forces which made possible the rapidity of their bold advances.”1
If you think it wise, that is, without offense to Devers’ group or to Simpson’s Army, and as a possible antidote for an overdose of Montgomery which is now coming into this country, you have my permission to release this in Paris.2
Document Copy Text Source: George C. Marshall Papers, Pentagon Office Collection, Selected Materials, George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia.
Document Format: Typed radio message.
1. On March 7 the U.S. Ninth Armored Division captured the strategic Ludendorff railway bridge at Remagen, allowing U.S. troops to cross the Rhine River and establish the first Allied bridgehead on the east bank of the Rhine. General Omar N. Bradley gives his account of Lieutenant General Courtney H. Hodges (First Army commander) notifying him of American troops crossing the Rhine in A Soldier’s Story (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1951), pp. 510-11. While elated that American troops had captured the bridge, Bradley was aware that plans had called for Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s troops to first cross the Rhine in the north. “The Plan had been predicated upon a major crossing by Monty north of the Ruhr. If, after satisfying Monty’s priority requirements, SHAEF could then support a diversionary offensive, a secondary crossing might be made by Third Army between Mainz and Karlsruhe. Indeed this secondary crossing was essential to the Ruhr pincer for which I had fought since the previous September,” wrote Bradley. “Although Eisenhower had not yet made a decision to restrict the Rhine crossing to Monty, his British-dominated staff at SHAEF so favored the Montgomery proposal that this single thrust had already become established in their minds as The Plan, SHAEF’s irrevocable plan for the assault of the Rhine.” Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s Third Army crossed the Rhine River on March 22 south of Mainz. Elements of Montgomery’s Twenty-first Army Group crossed the Rhine on March 23/24 near Wesel. (Ibid., pp. 511-24.) For a detailed account of the Allies capturing the Ludendorff Bridge amid German confused command and failed attempts to demolish the bridge, see MacDonald, Last Offensive, pp. 208-35.
Patton recalled: “The First Army seemed to be doing very well at the Remagen bridgehead. We were quite happy over it, but just a little envious.” He was determined to secure a crossing over the Rhine before Montgomery or probably lose divisions to Montgomery’s command and “have to go on the defensive. If, however, we could get across before the British attack, we could carry the ball.” (George S. Patton, Jr., War As I Knew It [Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947], pp. 254, 264.) On March 23 Patton congratulated the Third Army: “In the period from January 29 to March 22, 1945, you have wrested 6484 square miles of territory from the enemy. You have taken 3072 cities, towns, and villages, including among the former: Trier, Coblenz, Bingen, Worms, Mainz, Kaiserslautern, and Ludwigshafen. You have captured 140,112 enemy soldiers, and have killed or wounded an additional 99,000, thereby eliminating practically all of the German 7th and 1st Armies. . . . And remember that your assault crossing over the Rhine at 2200 hours last night assures you of even greater glory to come.” (Ibid., p. 269.)
2. General Jacob L. Devers’s Sixth Army Group was clearing the Saar-Palatinate area, along with Patton’s Third Army. (For more information on this campaign, see MacDonald, Last Offensive, pp. 236-65; Pogue, Supreme Command, pp. 424-27.) Lieutenant General William H. Simpson commanded the Ninth Army, which was part of Montgomery’s Twenty-first Army Group Rhine crossing. (MacDonald, Last Offensive, pp. 294-320.)
Eisenhower replied on March 24 that he was releasing Marshall’s message and that Bradley held a press conference outlining Twelfth Army Group operations carried out the “last few weeks in accordance with my fixed plan for eliminating the enemy forces west of the Rhine,” at which time Bradley complimented individual commanders and praised American equipment. “I cannot quite understand why Montgomery should be getting a big play at this time in the States,” replied Eisenhower. “It seems that even when operations carried out under his direction are of considerably less magnitude than those in other parts of the front, and even though large American forces cooperate, there is some influence at work that insists on giving Montgomery credit that belongs to other field commanders.” (Papers of DDE, 4: 2540-41.)
Recommended Citation: ThePapers of George Catlett Marshall, ed.Larry I. Bland and Sharon Ritenour Stevens(Lexington, Va.: The George C. Marshall Foundation, 1981- ). Electronic version based on The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 5, “The Finest Soldier,” January 1, 1945-January 7, 1947 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. 97-99.
http://mercedesblog.com/march-23-1945-70-years-since-the-liberation-of-the-mannheim-plant/
March 23, 70 years ago, the Mannheim was the first plant of Daimler-Benz AG to be liberated, in fact occupied, by the Allies at the end of the Second World War.
The facility on the slopes of the Luzenberg in the suburb of Mannheim-Waldhof was officially opened on October 12, 1908 and had witnessed production start-up more than 100 years ago. Benz & Cie. had bought the 311,000-square-meter site back in 1906, and construction work based on plans drawn up by the architect Albert Speer began in 1907. By the time of the opening ceremony, an area of around 35,000 square meters had been built on with factory buildings.
The plant played an important role in terms of Mercedes-Benz production during WW2: “In view of its outstanding technical facilities, the Mannheim plant has been assigned a particularly important responsibility within the production process of Daimler-Benz AG. In continuance of the old Benz tradition, Mannheim will be responsible for the production of diesel engines for industrial use, as well as for mid-range passenger cars and trucks. However, one of the Mannheim plant’s most important operational areas is to supply cast iron to all plants of Daimler-Benz AG from its exemplary and efficient cast iron foundry, a facility that operates with state-of-the-art equipment.”
The army forced operations to be switched to authorized production of the Opel three-ton truck. Demand for such vehicles during the war years was extremely high. As a result, the number of employees grew from 3,231 (1939) to 4,601 (1944). The workforce included 448 prisoners-of-war and forced laborers from the concentration camps, as well as 1,249 civilian foreign workers. The number of forced laborers and foreign workers reached a high in 1944. These people came from the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Croatia, Greece, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Serbia, Spain and Hungary.
For the Mannheim plant, the Second World War ended on March 23, 1945, when it was occupied by American troops. By this point, air raids had destroyed about 20 percent of all production facilities, and bombs had fallen on almost a quarter of the area. Following the occupation of the plant, a large area at the southern end of the premises was confiscated for use by the American occupying forces.
The US Army commandeered a part of the southern end of the plant for their own needs, and only gave up their occupation of the area in 1955.
I’m behind in my reading. From the Air Ambulance story on P 4; “..Another patient, a black-haired boy of Italian extraction from Lowell, Mass.,...” Oh how they richly plied the language back then.