Posted on 04/26/2015 4:35:34 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/3/26.htm
April 26th, 1945 (THURSDAY)
GERMANY: British complete capture of Bremen.
The French 1st Army reaches Lake Constance.
Galland is wounded and Obstlt.Heinz Ba(e)r took over command of the combined Luftwaffe unit of Jagdverband-44 and Erprobungskommando 162 which flies the Heinkel 162 Salamander jet fighter. (Russ Folsom)
Berlin: Russian tanks have crossed the Spree and reached the Jannowitz Bridge station within a few hundred yards of the Imperial Castle at the start of the Unter den Linden. There is, however, a surge of optimism in Hitler’s bunker as General Wenck has launched his relief attack from the west and has made good progress towards the capital. On the Russian side, there is dismay at Konev’s HQ because Stalin has divided Berlin between his armies and drawn the boundary so that Konev’s rival, Zhukov gets the plum prize, the Reichstag.
Soviet artillery fire made the first direct hits on the Chancellery buildings and grounds directly above the Führerbunker. That evening, a small plane containing female test pilot Hanna Reitsch and Luftwaffe General Ritter von Greim landed in the street near the bunker following a daring flight in which Greim had been wounded in the foot by Soviet ground fire.
Once inside the Führerbunker the wounded Greim was informed by Hitler he was to be Göring’s successor, promoted to Field-Marshal in command of the Luftwaffe.
Although a telegram could have accomplished this, Hitler had insisted Greim appear in person to receive his commission. But now, due to his wounded foot, Greim would be bedridden for three days in the bunker. (Gene Hanson)
SWITZERLAND: Vallorbe: With a soldier’s bearing, Marshal Philippe Petain saluted the aide-de-camp of General Koenig, the Free French commander-in-chief. He then advanced towards Koenig with outstretched hand, Koenig refused to shake. It took the aged marshal a moment to realize that he was under arrest.
He was transferred to a second-class train which will arrive in Paris early tomorrow. There the prosecutor in his case, Andre Mornet, said that Petain’s conduct deserved the death sentence “but he has reached an age where considerations of humanity should prevail.” He will later be tried and convicted as a war criminal.
ITALY: The US 5th Army moves towards the Brenner Pass and west towards Milan.
The British 8th Army moves northeast towards Venice and Trieste.
The US 15th Air Force conducts it last bombing mission when B-24s diverted from the original targets in northern Italy attack marshalling yards at four locations in southern Austria.
JAPAN: Off Okinawa, the destroyer USS Hickox (DD-673) is damaged by Japanese aircraft.
NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: RAAF B-24 Liberators stage through Corunna Downs to bomb Malang Airfield near Surabaya. Weather is bad and one Liberator is lost. The purpose of the operation was to put this airfield out of
commission during the invasion of Tarakan. The operation was led by Squadron Leader J. E. S. Dennett. The weather was bad over Java and over the alternate target. Some Liberators bombed but results could not be observed.
The fifth aircraft in the mission (captained by Sqn-Ldr Wawn AFC) sent out distress signals. He called for a bearing and said he was making for Truscott airfield. Off Sumba, he radioed that he would have to land. He did
so successfully but Japanese soldiers arrived almost immediately and captured all the crew. They were taken first to Sumbawa, then to Lombok and Bali. They finally arrived in Batavia at the end of June 1945. They reported
brutal treatment, including beatings and torture, particularly on Sqn-Ldr Wawn. They were released in Batavia at the end of the war. (Michael Alexander Mitchell)
That’s an expensive little dress there on page 12. It’s interesting to see the advertisements for high-end merchandise, contrasting with goods aimed at the general population.
Almost $500 for this cute little straw purse.
$90 in 1945 would be the equivalent of $1,178.34 today.
It looks like that shop no longer sells dresses.
But what about the vampire threat and the zombie threat?
It took 50 years for the vampire threat and 60 years for the zombie threat to materialize as ubiquitous. Infiltration started in Hollywood.
"More what you call guidelines than actual rules."
Don't you watch movies? Vampires are isolated nuisances. Zombies are more of an urban threat but I've never seen a movie where they emerge from the ruins of a cataclysm. I'd be worried about them appearing on places like college campuses about 20-25 years from now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jdefO0Dxhc
Nazi Murder Mills, April 26, 1945 Universal Newsreel
First actual newsreel pictures of atrocities in Nazi murder camps.
Short newsreel about the meetings in San Francisco at the end.
Like that pic of the 83rd, my grandfather served with them.
Group of American and Russian Army officers and war correspondents toasting each other to celebrate meeting of U.S. and Communist Armies at Torgau, Germany, on the Elbe River on April 26, 1945. The woman in the center is Ann Stringer, American newspaper representative with U.S. forces.
"The collapse of the German war effort and the steady advance of the Allied armies drove major agencies of the Nazi government into a subterranean network of underground bunkers.
Adolf Hitler spent the final weeks of his life in a dank, 18-room bunker located directly under the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.
"As the Red Army closed in, the Führer was a shadow of his former self.
His body was stooped and emaciated, and he could not prevent his hands and voice from shaking.
He suffered violent mood swings and forcefully rejected an opportunity to escape Berlin by plane.
"Before Hitler's demise, he expelled Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler from the Nazi Party.
He married his longtime mistress, Eva Braun, and dictated his last will and testament.
The final sentence of his political testament reads: 'Above all, I obligate the leaders of the nation and their following to a strict observance of the racial laws, and to a merciless resistance to the poisoner of all peoples, international Jewry.'
"On April 30, 1945, sometime between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m., Hitler put a pistol to his head, bit into a cyanide capsule, and shot himself.
Braun, too, committed suicide.
The German POW seen below apparently felt little sorrow."
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