http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/3/23.htm
April 23rd, 1945 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
Frigate HMCS Carlplace arrived Londonderry.
HMC ML 081 of 79th ML Flotilla completed refit.
Frigate HMCS Meon paid off and returned to RN at Southampton. Retained in post-war RN.
Submarine HMS Seneschal launched.
GERMANY: Hermann Göring sends a radio message to Hitler offering to take war leadership of the Reich if Hitler is unable to continue while the siege continues.
Berlin: Albert Speer bids Hitler farewell, confessing that he sabotaged the “scorched-earth” directive, and has preserved German factories and industry for the post-war period.
The Red Army has broken into Berlin from the north, east and south. Massed Russian artillery is shelling the central and western areas of the city. Buildings are collapsing piece by piece. Sturmovik aircraft dive over the rubble to silence German strongpoints. Latest reports say that Russian assault troops are smashing their way through the inner ring of SS resistance near the Stettiner railway station, one mile from the Unter den Linden.
Frankfürt am der Oder: After 6 days of heavy defensive fighting, the defenders of the city, assisted by 11.SS-Armee Korps [Kleinheisterkamp], gave very little ground to Soviet 1st Byelorussian Front. Massive and continuous artillery bombardments on the town from 20 to 22 April, 1945, reduced vast parts of the city to a wasteland of burning rubble. Still, the defensive perimeter remained intact. Zhukov’s 1st Byelorussian then sought to bypass and find a way around and behind the stubborn defenders. By 22 April the near breakup of 9th Armee into three isolated segments was dangerously close.
Hitler, at the insistence of Gen. Heinrici, allowed 9th Army to remove itself from continued [suicidal] holding of the Oder line-position, which allowed the extrication of the beleaguered and nearly surrounded garrison of ‘Festung-Frankfurt’ aided by elements of 11.SS-Armee.Korps, at the very last moment. The Russians [actually a Polish Tank Brigade of the Red Army] took possession of the city on 23 April 1945. Detonations and fire in the city centre area went on for a number of days beyond this, and have been attributed to both unexploded Allied aerial ordnance [The RAF raided Frankfurt a. Oder in late March and early April 1945], as well as to last ditch Hitler-Jugend attacks by the so-called ‘Werwolf’ organisation. (Russ Folsom)
Reichsjugendführer Artur Axmann gives a personal order that battalions of Hitler Youth be raised to defend the Pichelsdorf bridges across the River Havel in Berlin to keep the way open for Wenck’s phantom army.
Elements of the 2nd US Cavalry Group, 90th and 97th US Infantry Divisions liberate the 1,526 prisoners who remain in the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp near Weiden in NE Bavaria.
About 1,000 German civilians are massacred by the Red Army in the occupied town of Treuenbrietzen. Men are gathered together, taken to nearby woods and shot. A number of women are also raped and killed. Nearly every family in the town loses relatives.
Five kilometres up the road near the village of Nichel retreating German soldiers shoot 127 Italian forced labourers who had just escaped from a munitions factory in Treuenbritzen.
A brief history of KL Flossenbürg:
In May 1938,’Konzentrationslager’(KL)Flossenbürg in the district of Neustadt on the Waldnaab was established.(*) At first it was intended for “criminal and asocial elements”, but later the camp contained mostly political prisoners, in particular foreign nationals from the areas occupied by Germany during the war. The original camp was made up of 16 long, single level, wooden barracks, the kitchen, the laundry and disinfection buildings, the workshops, the camp prison (punishment block), crematorium, and roll call area. During the first years, prisoners were used primarily to build the camp and to labour in the granite quarry. After the war began, the prisoners were increasingly put to work in the armaments industry.
Eventually, the camp administered nearly a hundred satellite camps and external labour commands, some of which were quite a distance from the central camp at Flossenbürg, as far away as Bohemia and Saxony. Some 5,000 prisoners were held in the satellite camps, approximately one third of them were women.
“According to records found in the camp, from 1939 on, 54,890 men and over 10,000 women were held prisoner in KL Flossenburg. In the 14 month period preceding 20 April, 1945, 14,000 inmates died from starvation, exhaustion, mistreatment and various diseases. The prisoners worked in stone quarries and a nearby Messerschmitt Airplane Factory. On 20 April, 1945, 15,000 inmates, including children and elderly people, were marched away. Those that could not keep up the march were killed by the wayside. Less than 2000 were left in the camp when US troops arrived. Among those reported to have been in the camp were Kurt Von Schuschnig, former Chancellor of Austria; Leopold, King of Belgium, Prince Albrecht of Austria and Hjalmar Schacht, Reich Minister of Finances.”
A camp memorial was built between 1946 and 1948. The foundations, as well as a few complete prison barracks and the remains of the wall around the prison courtyard have been preserved. Two cells have been reconstructed in their original form on the west side of the prison barracks. Many well-known participants of the German [July 20th] resistance movement, including Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and Generalmajor Hans Oster were imprisoned and executed at the Flossenbürg Camp in April 1945.
(Source)
(*)Neustadt an der Waldnaab is in the Oberfalz region of NE Bavaria near the Czech border. (Russ Folsom)
ITALY: The US 5th and the British 8th Army reach the River Po. The 5th Army crosses south of Mantua.
BURMA: The First Division of the Indian National Army, fighting with the Japanese, surrenders en masse to the Allies.
JAPAN: The XXIV Corps attack begins to gain ground on Okinawa.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Units of the US 37th Division reach the outskirts of Baguio, Luzon.
JAVA SEA: U-183 sunk at 1300 in the Java Sea, in position 04.50S, 112.52E, by a torpedo from submarine USS Besugo. 54 dead and 1 survivor.
BORNEO: The US Navy’s Patrol Bombing Squadron One Hundred Nine (VPB-109) based at Puerto Princessa, Palawan, Philippine Islands, launches the Special Weapons Ordnance Device (SWOD) Mk. 9 for the first time against an enemy target. The SWOD Mk. 9, or “Bat” missile, is a glide bomb consisting of a 1,000 pound (453.6 kg) bomb casing equipped with wings, twin tail and internal radar to guide it. Two Bats are launched by a VPB-109 Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer against Japanese shipping in Balikpapan harbour in Borneo but both are defective and do not hit any targets.
U.S.A.: At 12:15pm U-853, five miles southeast of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, torpedoes and sinks USS Eagle (PE-56). The Eagle was at a dead stop. The explosion amidships sends a geyser of steam and water 200 feet skyward, breaking the ship in two and sinking her within minutes. 49 seamen are killed. (More on the Eagle boats.)
Destroyers USS Holder, Theodore E Chandler and Warrington laid down.
Destroyer USS Vesole commissioned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 1535, U-1023 fired a spread of two LUT torpedoes at Convoy TBC-135 and heard one detonation and sinking noises. In fact, the Riverton was only damaged.
The unescorted Katy was torpedoed and damaged by U-857 east of Kitty Hawk. She was towed to Lynnhaven, Hampton Roads on 26 April and repaired. It is also possible that U-879 torpedoed this ship, but both U-boats were lost during April 1945 in that area and this success can not be definitely assigned to one of the boats.
U-396 reported missing from weather-reporting duties. No explanation exists for its loss. 45 dead (all hands lost).
U-1055 reported missing in the North Atlantic or the English Channel. No explanation exists for its loss. 49 dead (all hands lost).
Minesweeper HMCS Vegreville damaged by mines off French coast and headed for Devonport for repairs. The damage to her port engine was considered to be beyond economical repair and was declared a constructive total loss 6 Jun 45.
U-716 depth charged in the Arctic by a hunter-killer group. Due to the damage incurred the boat had to return to base.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/truman-confronts-molotov
Truman confronts Molotov
April 23, 1945
Less than two weeks after taking over as president after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman gives a tongue-lashing to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. The incident indicated that Truman was determined to take a “tougher” stance with the Soviets than his predecessor had.
When Roosevelt died of a massive stroke on April 12, 1945, Harry S. Truman took over as president. Truman was overwhelmed by the responsibilities so suddenly thrust upon him and, particularly in terms of foreign policy, the new president was uncertain about his approach. Roosevelt had kept his vice-president in the dark about most diplomatic decisions, not even informing Truman about the secret program to develop an atomic bomb. Truman had to learn quickly, however. The approaching end of World War II meant that momentous decisions about the postwar world needed to be made quickly. The primary issue Truman faced was how to deal with the Soviet Union. Just weeks before his death, Roosevelt met with Russian leader Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at Yalta to discuss the postwar situation. Agreements made during the meeting left the Soviets in de facto control of Eastern Europe in exchange for Soviet promises to hold “democratic” elections in Poland. Some officials in the U.S. government were appalled at these decisions, believing that Roosevelt was too “soft” on the Soviets and naive in his belief that Stalin would cooperate with the West after the war. Truman gravitated to this same point of view, partially because of his desire to appear decisive, but also because of his long-standing animosity toward the Soviets.
On April 23, 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov arrived at the White House for a meeting with the new president. Truman immediately lashed out at Molotov, “in words of one syllable,” as the president later recalled. As Molotov listened incredulously, Truman charged that the Soviets were breaking their agreements and that Stalin needed to keep his word. At the end of Truman’s tirade, Molotov indignantly declared that he had never been talked to in such a manner. Truman, not to be outdone, replied that if Molotov had kept his promises, he would not need to be talked to like that. Molotov stormed out of the meeting. Truman was delighted with his own performance, telling one friend that he gave the Soviet official “the straight one-two to the jaw.” The president was convinced that a tough stance was the only way to deal with the communists, a policy that came to dominate America’s early Cold War policies toward the Soviets.
Personally, I would mark the Truman tongue-lashing of Molotov as the beginning of the Cold War.
Po Valley
5 April-8 May 1945
*excerpt*
In the west, the 10th Mountain Division's spearhead reached the Po River at San Benedetto, thirty miles north of Ponte Samoggia, on the evening of 22 April. By midnight, the rest of the division had arrived' and river-crossing equipment followed. Masses of destroyed enemy materiel littered the south bank of the Po, showing the devastating effects of Allied air power. Not one bridge remained standing. As the 10th Mountain Division waited to cross, the 1st Armored Division skirted Modena over a captured Panaro River bridge four miles north of Highway 9, then moved west, reaching a southwestern loop of the Po on 23 April. The units' armored vehicles then spread out along several miles of the river's southern bank to block crossings by any remaining enemy soldiers bypassed in the headlong race for the river. The rapid American advance along the forty-mile-wide front had left many pockets of Axis soldiers, and special task forces were now created to mop up rear areas as the main Allied units pressed farther northward. Ultimately, over 100,000 Axis troops were forced to surrender in the areas south of the river.
Although the majority of the Po River bridges were destroyed, the U.S. 85th Infantry Division, like other fast-moving Fifth Army units, had been able to take many spans south of the Po intact, such as the Panaro River bridge at Camposanto, eleven miles north of Ponte Samoggia. Early on 22 April, fearing efforts of enemy rear-guard units to destroy the span, a sergeant from the division's 310th Engineer Battalion quickly plunged into the river, cut the demolition wires under enemy fire, and saved the structure from destruction. Once across, the 310th repelled an enemy attempt to retake the bridge and to hold the town. As one regiment cleared Camposanto and secured the span, another swung to the left, crossed the bridge seven miles south at Bomporto, and quickly covered the intervening twenty-four miles of territory, arriving at the Po River just before noon on 23 April 1945. The division then cleared the south bank, capturing hundreds of prisoners and much equipment in the process. Later in the day a westward shift of corps boundaries caused the 85th Division to relinquish some of its territory to the 88th Division, which had only left the Panaro River early that morning. The 85th then prepared to cross the Po River in force the next day.
By 24 April the entire Fifth Army front had reached the Po. In the west, IV Corps units advanced west, northwest, and north, pushing forward bridging equipment for an offensive across the river. In the 10th Division area, fifty M-2 assault boats enabled the unit to begin ferrying troops across at noon. Air bursts from German artillery caused some casualties, but enemy actions failed to significantly delay the crossings here or elsewhere. Once on the far bank, the 10th Mountain quickly secured its bridgehead. By 1800 hours two regiments were on the far bank, with the division's third regiment crossing during the night.
*excerpt*
Prisoners were captured by the tens of thousands in the Po Valley and marched to the rear, often unguarded or guarded by only one or two men. (National Archives)
“U.S.A.: At 12:15pm U-853, five miles southeast of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, torpedoes and sinks USS Eagle (PE-56). The Eagle was at a dead stop. The explosion amidships sends a geyser of steam and water 200 feet skyward, breaking the ship in two and sinking her within minutes. 49 seamen are killed.”
These are waters sailed by my family since the early 1600s. My grandfather told me that a German sub was sunk off of nearby Reid State Park...perhaps during WWI.
Curiously, the US Gov’t did not recognize that this boat was sunk by this sub until 2001!
Here is what happened to this sub:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-853
U-853 carried a crew of 55. The Germans nicknamed the U-boat der Seiltänzer (”the Tightrope Walker”), and her crew painted an emblem of a yellow shield with a red horse on her sail.[4]
Eagle Boat 56, a World War I-era patrol boat, was towing targets for a United States Navy dive-bomber training exercise 3 miles (4.8 km) off Cape Elizabeth when she exploded amidships and sank. Only 13 of the 67 crew survived. Although several survivors claimed to have seen a submarine sail with yellow and red insignia, a Navy inquiry attributed the sinking to a boiler explosion. The Navy reversed its findings in 2001 to acknowledge that the sinking was due to hostile fire and awarded Purple Hearts to the survivors and next-of-kin of the deceased.
On 5 May 1945, President (Reichspräsident) of Nazi Germany Karl Dönitz ordered all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases. U-853 was lying in wait off Point Judith, Rhode Island at the time. According to the US Coast Guard, U-853 did not receive that order, or less likely, ignored it.[14] Soon after, her torpedo blew off the stern of SS Black Point, a 368-foot (112 m) collier underway from New York to Boston. Within 15 minutes Black Point had sunk in 100 feet (30 m) of water less than 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Point Judith.[16] She was the last US-flagged merchant ship lost in World War II. Twelve men died, while 34 crew members were rescued. One of the rescuing ships, Yugoslav freighter SS Kamen, sent a report of the torpedoing to authorities. The US Navy organized a “hunter-killer” group that included four American warships: Ericsson (DD-440), Amick (DE-168), Atherton (DE-169), and Moberly (PF-63).[17]
The group discovered U-853 bottomed in 18 fathoms (108 ft; 33 m), and dropped depth charges and hedgehogs during a 16 hour attack. At first the U-boat attempted to flee, and then tried to hide by lying still. Both times it was found by sonar.[18] The morning of 6 May 1945 two K-Class blimps from Lakehurst, New Jersey, K-16 and K-58, joined the attack, locating oil slicks and marking suspected locations with smoke and dye markers. K-16 also attacked with 7.2-inch rocket bombs. Numerous depth charge and hedgehog attacks from Atherton and Moberly resulted in planking, life rafts, a chart tabletop, clothing, and an officer’s cap floating to the surface. With the loss of all 55 officers and men, U-853 was one of the last U-boats sunk during World War II.[18] and, with U-881, the last to be sunk in US waters. Atherton and Moberly received credit for the kill.[2