|
Post by emron on Feb 11, 2018 16:55:54 GMT 12
Workshop Update. Since returning from holidays the major project has been to remove and rebuild the DC3 flaps which is still work in progress. Getting all the hinge wires, push rods and linkages freed up has been a major undertaking. Most of the skins were too badly corroded to salvage so a lot of drilling and rivetting needs to be completed. Out under the shelter a start has been made to remove and repair engine cowls off the Solent. Work is ongoing to rebuild floorboards and other interior fixtures. Bulk paint strip of the fuselage is still pending a decision on suitable method and raising of funds. The interior green paint for the Sunderland turrets arrived during the week so the base of the front turret will be finished in this colour first. Then the cupola can be attached as soon as it is re-assembled. That’s waiting on two of the smaller panes of perspex to be replaced. I’ve moulded both of them now and once trimmed they can be fitted.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 11, 2018 7:59:43 GMT 12
9 February 1940 Fierce fighting continued today as General Timoshenko pressed his massive and well organised attack on the Mannerheim Line. The offensive opened with a concentrated barrage on the Finnish positions near Summa.
9 February 1941 U-37 attacked Allied convoy HG-53 435 miles west of Gibraltar, sinking British ships Estrellano (5 killed, 21 survived) and Courland (3 killed, 27 survived). U-37 had also reported the sighting to aircraft based in Bordeaux, France, which led to the arrival of five Fw 200 Condor bombers, which sank British ships Jura, Dagmar I, and Brittanic and Norwegian ship Tejo. Admiral Darlan became the new Vice Premier of Vichy France. British Force H, including two battleships and one cruiser, with carrier HMS Ark Royal supporting from a distance, bombarded Genoa, Italy at 0815 hours. 273 15-inch shells and 782 6-inch shells were fired. Four merchant ships and a training vessel were sunk, 18 ships were damaged, harbour facilities and nearby industrial areas were damaged, and the cathedral was also hit. 144 Italians were killed, most of whom were civilians. The British lost 1 Swordfish torpedo bomber. Italian battleships Vittorio Veneto, Cesare, and Doria, supported by cruiser and destroyers, were launched to intercept the British fleet but failed to find them. Allied troops captured El Agheila, Libya, marking an end of Operation Compass.
9 February 1942 The 85,000 ton French passenger liner SS Normandie was accidentally set on fire while undergoing conversion to a USN transport. She capsized and sank at dock in New York Harbour under the weight of water used to extinguish the fire. U-654 attacked Allied convoy ON-60 in the Atlantic Ocean 450 miles east of Cape Race, Newfoundland, damaging Free French corvette Alysse; 36 were killed, 34 survived. U-85 also attacked ON-60, sinking British ship Empire Fusilier; 9 were killed, 38 survived. By dawn, the Japanese were pouring through a massive gap in the line manned by the two brigades of the Australian 8th Division and Tengah airfield, the initial objective of the Japanese assault, was taken by to the enemy. Within a few hours, more than 4,000 Japanese troops came ashore in assault craft. Tanks and infantry were being ferried across on rafts. It was estimated that 30,000 Japanese have been successfully landed on Singapore. About 8,000 Japanese troops land near Makassar City and south of Makassar at Jeneponto on Celebes Island A flight of three USAAF 5th Air Force A-24 Dauntlesses, nine P-40s and an LB-30 Liberator guide, on a flight from Australia to Java, arrived over Koepang Airfield on Timor and found the base closed by weather. The LB-30 returned to Darwin, but the A-24s and P-40s had to land. All nine P-40s were destroyed during the attempt and the three A-24s were shot up by Dutch AA gunners. One A-24 continued to Java next day but the other two must return to Australia for repairs. Japanese submarine HIJMS I-69 shelled Sand Island, Midway with its 100mm deck gun. It was strafed and damaged by a USMC F2A Buffalo of VMF 221. Four destroyers from Rabaul landed troops of the Japanese 144th Infantry at Gasmata, a coastal town on southern New Britain Island.
9 February 1943 Twenty U-boats have launched a sustained attack on a slow-moving Atlantic convoy, SC-118, over the last five days. Thirteen merchant ships were sunk from the original 63, despite the presence of ten escort vessels and long-range air cover. Three U-boats were sunk and two more were believed to have been seriously damaged in a battle where the long winter nights helped protect the U-boats from Allied aircraft. The Red Army liberated Belgorod. Flower class corvette HMS Erica was sunk in a minefield in the Mediterranean between Beghazi and Derna. Fortunately, there are no casualties, the entire 73 man crew being rescued by HMS Southern Maid. Italian submarine Malachite torpedoed and sunk near Cape Spartivento, Sardinia, Italy by the submarine HNLMS Dolfijn. 1st Battalion of the US Army’s 164th Regiment met a patrol from the 2nd Battalion of the US Army's 132nd Regiment at the village of Tenaro, on the western end of Guadalcanal about 1650 in the afternoon. These two units of the Americal Division confirmed that organized Japanese resistance on Guadalcanal had ended.
9 February 1944 The very successful anti-submarine group led by Captain F J Walker in HMS Starling fought a notable action in defence of convoy SL.147, sinking U-238 and U-734. Over 150 depth charges were used in a long and relentless battle, one of the depth charges successfully exploding a German torpedo just a few yards before it would have hit Starling. U-238 sunk by sloops HMS Starling, Kite and Magpie; 50 dead (all hands lost). U-734 sunk by sloops HMS Starling and Wild Goose; 49 dead (all hands lost). 12 Lancasters of 617 "Dambuster" Squadron, led by Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire, last night devastated the important Gnome and Rhone aero-engine factory at Limoges, France. Cheshire overflew the target at extreme low level, several times, to warn off civilian workers and ensure their escape before accurately laying markers for the precision bombing that followed. Soviet forces led by Generals Malinkovsky and Konev began to wipe out the German Eighth Army at Kirovograd. German troops captured Aprilia, Italy.
9 February 1945 In a rare instance of submarine-to-submarine combat, British HMS Venturer sank German U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway. Venturer had been sent to the area to intercept U-864 based on Enigma decrypts. While submerged west of Bergen, Lt Chalmers was in the control room when he heard faint underwater sounds on the hydrophones and the Captain, Lt Jimmy Launders spotted a periscope at about 5,000 yards range. Following a 3 hour pursuit Venturer fired four torpedoes, and two minutes 12 seconds later there was a loud explosion. This was the only known sinking of one submarine by another when both boats were submerged throughout the engagement; 73 dead (all hands lost). After an overnight attack by heavy bombers and a 1,000-gun bombardment, linked to a second air strike, British and Canadian troops swept forward into the Siegfried Line. Meanwhile, half of German 19.Armee were evacuated back into Germany before the final Rhine River bridge in the Colmar Pocket in France was blown. Indian troops completed the capture of Ramree Island, Burma.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 9, 2018 21:19:16 GMT 12
A small point, but the US Navy aircraft which sank U-177 on 6 Feb 1944 was unlikely to have been a Privateer (PB4Y-2). My understanding is that this type of aircraft did not commenced deliveries to VPB squadrons until late in 1944. Now confirmed, the 6 Feb 44 attack was carried out by VB-107 PB4Y-1 Liberator, using nine Mk. 47 depth charges. Aint Mr Google wonderful! David D Entry now corrected.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 9, 2018 21:06:14 GMT 12
8 February 1940 At the Lake Ladoga area in Finland, the various pockets of Soviet troops surrounded by Finnish troops began to be wiped out one by one; Soviet General Timoshenko did not have any plans to reinforce or rescue these pockets.
8 February 1941 German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau detected Allied convoy HX-106, but did not attack due to the presence of British battleship HMS Ramillies. In Berlin the German and Bulgarian military staffs agreed arrangements for German troops to enter Bulgaria. The first German troops and equipment embarked for North Africa from the port of Naples. General Giuseppe Tellera Chief-of-Staff North African theatre command, also acting commander of Italian 10th Army was mortally wounded in an M13 tank during the furious but ultimately unsuccessful three-day battle to break through the British roadblocks at Beda Fomm. He was found inside the disabled tank by the British after the battle ended, and died in hospital the following day.
8 February 1942 Unescorted SS Ocean Venture was hit by one torpedo from U-108 near Cape Hatteras and stopped. The crew abandoned ship after being hit amidships by a coup de grâce, but the vessel remained afloat and sank by the bow following a second coup de grâce at 1116. 29 crewmembers and two gunners were lost. The master and 13 crewmembers were picked up by USS Roe and landed at Norfolk, Virginia Demyansk: General Kurochkin's troops encircled 90,000 German soldiers of six divisions of the 2nd Armeekorps. the Japanese intensified their artillery bombardment of Singapore and at about 2230 hours began landing in force on the northwestern coast of the island in the Australian sector; in this sector, three depleted Australian battalions were facing 16 Japanese battalions. The first two waves of assault craft were almost annihilated, mainly by machine gun fire, but the third wave managed to land in force and fierce hand-to-hand combat ensued. Despite opposition at the beaches, the Japanese gained a firm bridgehead and started toward Tengah airfield, driving a wedge in the Australian line in the West Area. Nine USAAF 5th Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses based at Singosari Airfield, Java, attempted to bomb Kendari Airfield on Celebes. The flight was intercepted by Japanese fighters over the Java Sea and six B-17s were lost. Off Makassar City on Celebes Island, the submarine USS S-37 torpedoed and sank Japanese destroyer HIJMS Natsushio.
8 February 1943 SS Newton Ash in Convoy SC-118 was torpedoed and sunk by U-402 south of Iceland. The master, 29 crewmembers and four gunners were lost. Four crewmembers were picked up by USCGC Ingham and landed at Reykjavik. Kursk fell to the Soviets with a sudden outflanking movement which took the Germans by surprise. General Golikov's troops also took Korocha, some 70 miles to the south, and the Russians now threatened the whole German line from Orel to Kharkov. HMCS Regina, a Flower-class corvette, sank the Italian Platino-class submarine Avorio, off Philipeville, in the Mediterranean Sea. Nineteen men were lost from her 46 crewmembers, including the Commanding Officer. The 77th Indian Brigade, under General Orde Wingate began what become known as the Chindit Raids, near Imphal, India. Tatsuta Maru departed Yokosuka, Japan at 1600 hours, escorted by destroyer Yamagumo. At 2215 hours, at 42 miles east-southeast of Mikura Jima in the Izu Islands south of Tokyo, US submarine USS Tarpon sank her with about four torpedoes. Tatsuta Maru sank at 2237 hours, killing 1,223 passengers and 198 crew. Destroyer Yamagumo failed to find any survivors in the darkness and in the rough seas. The last Japanese troops were evacuated from what has become known to the Japanese soldiers as "Starvation Island", otherwise known as Guadalcanal. At the same time elements of the 2nd Marine Division that had fought in the Solomons with the 1st Marine Division rejoined the balance of their parent 2nd Marine Division in camps around Wellington after arriving by sea today.
8 February 1944 The Red Army captured Nikopol, Ukraine. Meanwhile, the German troops surrounded at Korsun were invited to surrender. US troops began an major assault toward Monte Cassino, Italy. Major William Sidney, 1st Viscount de L'Isle, led an attack on enemy positions at Anzio, Italy. Although wounded, he refused medical treatment until his objectives had been made secure. For this he would be awarded the Victoria Cross (following in the footsteps of his father-in-law, Field Marshal Lord Gort who had also been badly wounded whilst winning the same medal during the 1914-1918 war) Submarine HMS Sportsman torpedoed and sank the German POW Transport Petrella north of Souda Bay (Crete). 2,670 out of 3,173 Italian POWs where killed. German Guards did not open the POW rooms and fired at them while they tried to break out. U-762 sunk in the North Atlantic, by depth charges from sloops HMS Woodpecker and Wild Goose. 51 dead (all hands lost).
8 February 1945 British and Canadian forces launched a major assault into the Reichswald near Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Montgomery opened Operation Veritable, a British 2nd Army and Canadian 1st Army offensive to clear the lower Rhineland. Marshal Ivan Konev's six armies surged out of their Oder River bridgehead in eastern Germany. Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front commenced the Lower Silesian Offensive at 0600 hours after a 55-minute artillery bombardment; by the end of the day, Soviet troops had penetrated German lines by as much as 60 kilometres at certain locations. Yalta: Joseph Stalin held a feast for the Allied leaders and they took time off from the conference to visit the historic battlefield at Balaklava.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 8, 2018 7:21:42 GMT 12
7 February 1940 Belfast-Liverpool ferry Munster, with 45 crew and 190 passengers on board, hit a mine (laid by German submarine U-30 on 6 Jan 1940) at 0600 hours. All aboard were rescued by British steamer Ringwal. Soviet troops attacked the Summa gap in Finland for the 7th consecutive day. 4 died at Kajaani in Soviet air raids.
7 February 1941 Beda Fomm, Libya: At 11 am the Italian Chief of Staff surrendered to the HQ of 4th Armoured Brigade. Later General Annibale Bergonzoli surrendered along with the rest of 10th Army. 20,000 men, 6 generals and a vast horde of weapons, transport and supplies. The cost of the battle to 7 Armoured Div. was nine men killed and 15 wounded. British and Indian troops continued to hold the Cameron Ridge near Keren, Eritrea, Italian East Africa.
7 February 1942 The month-long battles at Maaselkä Isthmus culminated today as the Finnish reinforced 3rd Brigade finished destroying the encircled Soviet 367th Rifle Division in Krivi. The recapture of Krivi, which the Red Army had captured on the first day of their offensive on 1 Jan, brought the battles to close, and the front-line was back where it was before the Soviet offensive. East Prussia: The Nazi armaments and munitions minister, Fritz Todt, returning to Berlin after talks with Hitler, was killed when his plane crashed on take-off. Albert Speer was appointed as Minister of Munitions in his place. The Japanese infiltrated across the Salween River in Burma between the defenders at Martaban and Thaton. Japanese aircraft attacked Palembang, Sumatra, Dutch East Indies, destroying RAF aircraft.
7 February 1943 The Japanese Army completed Operation Ke, the evacuation of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, as the final 1,796 soldiers were evacuated by 18 ships.
7 February 1944 German and Allied artillery pieces bombarded each other at Anzio, Italy; at 2100 hours, Germans launched a full attack on the beachhead. US troops reached Point 445, a hill 370 meters away from the monastery at Monte Cassino, American troops completed the conquest of Kwajalein and Majuro Atolls in the Marshall Islands.
7 February 1945 German demolition of Ruhr floodgates flooded the area west of Köln, Germany, inhibiting Allied action. General Douglas MacArthur entered Manila, Luzon.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 6, 2018 21:28:44 GMT 12
6 February 1906 William Halsey was promoted to the rank of ensign.
6 February 1912 Eva Braun was born in München in southern Germany.
6 February 1940 Finnish 9th Division completed its encirclement of the Soviet 54th Division at Kuhmo. To the south, Soviet troops continued to shell Finnish defensive positions on the Mannerheim Line on the Karelian Isthmus, but actual advances were limited. 6 February 1941 U-107 sank Canadian ship Maplecourt 250 miles northwest of Ireland at 1752 hours, killing the entire crew of 37. The German High Command issued the order for Operation Sonnenblume (Sunflower), which called for the organization and transfer of a German force to reinforce Italian forces in North Africa. Erwin Rommel, unexpectedly summoned from leave, was instructed by Adolf Hitler's headquarters that he was to proceed to Libya forthwith, as commander of the German troops which would be shortly arriving there and would be called the Afrika Korps. On the Benghazi-Tripoli road in Libya, the trapped Italian Tenth Army attempted to break out without success. Australian 6th Division captured Benghazi while 7th Support Group of British 7th Armoured Division captured Sceleidima; these captures further secured the envelopment of the Italian Tenth Army. Near Keren, Eritrea, Italian East Africa, Indian 3rd Battalion of 14th Punjab Regiment attacked Brig's Peak but was pushed back by Italian 65th Infantry Division.
6 February 1942 U-107 sank US freighter Major Wheeler off the east coast of the United States, killing the entire crew of 35. Off Bermuda, U-106 sank British ship Opawa. Northeast of the Azores islands, U-109 sank Panamanian ship Halcyon. Finally, U-82 attempted to attack convoy OS-18, but was sunk by depth charges in return from sloop HMS Rochester and corvette HMS Tamarisk; 45 dead (all hands lost). Six Japanese troop transports, escorted by cruiser Nagara, 11 destroyers, and 2 minesweepers, departed Kendari, Celebes, Dutch East Indies for Makassar on the western coast of the island.
6 February 1943 General Malinovsky was racing on from the Donets, forcing Field Marshal von Manstein back to Taganrog and the Mius with or without Hitler's permission. The Russians now seemed poised to take the whole of the Donets basin. It was the same story further north where Hitler was forced to give General von Kluge, the commander of Army Group Centre, permission to abandon the vulnerable Rzhev salient. Von Kluge now seemed likely to lose Kursk in the next few days. There was one city that Hitler ordered to be held at all costs: Kharkov, the fourth largest city in the Soviet Union. The newly-formed SS Panzer Korps was ordered to defend it to the death. Whilst escorting convoy KMS.8 from Gibraltar to Bone, Algeria Flower-class corvette HMCS Louisburg was sunk by an Italian torpedo-bomber 60 miles N of Oran. The explosion of the torpedo killed the entire engine room staff. The ship sank within three minutes with the loss of 42 crewmembers (two officers, 35 ratings, five RN), including the Commanding Officer. The survivors were rescued by HMS Lookout. Australian reinforcements arrived at Wau, New Guinea; above them, 37 Allied fighters shot down 26 out of 70 Japanese raiders.
6 February 1944 150 heavy Soviet bombers attacked Helsinki as a part of Stalin’s plan to soften Finland to separate from Germany and conclude peace. Thanks to the efficient Finnish air-defences, mostly equipment purchased from Germany, the damage to the city was limited, but still 103 people were killed. U-177 sunk in the South Atlantic west of Ascension Island, by depth charges from a USN VB-107 PB4Y-1 Liberator. 50 dead and 15 survivors. Both on the Cassino front and on the beachhead south of Rome, Allied troops were forced to withdraw under heavy German counterattacks. Major-General Orde Wingate led a special force of Indian, British and US soldiers to engage the Japanese at Myitkyina, Burma.
6 February 1945 U-1017 attacked Convoy TBC-60 SE of Durlston Head, Dorset, England and torpedoed and sank SS Everleigh; six crewmembers were lost. The master, 42 crewmembers and seven gunners were picked up by landing craft HMS LCI-33 and landed at Portland. The Soviets crossed the Oder near Breslau, Poland and pushed back the Germans from Budapest and surrounded the town of Sashegy, Hungary. General Douglas MacArthur tonight claimed that the recapture of Manila was imminent, as house-to-house fighting continued in the Philippines capital and US troops fought fires started deliberately by the retreating Japanese. The SS Peter Silvester was torpedoed by U-862 in the Indian Ocean about 750 miles west of Perth, Australia. 33 men aboard the ship died and 142 were eventually rescued, with some weeks after the initial sinking. The last lifeboat found with 15 survivors was adrift for 32 days.The Peter Silvester was the last ship sunk by German U-boats in the Indian Ocean.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 6, 2018 18:10:31 GMT 12
5 February 1940 In Paris the Supreme War Council approved a French plan to send an Anglo-French expedition of three or four divisions to the aid of Finland. This was dependent on agreement from Norway and Sweden over whose neutral territory they proposed to cross. U-41 damaged Dutch tanker Ceronia at 0330 hours. At 1310 hours, she torpedoed and sank British ship Beaverburn 150 miles south of Ireland, killing 1, with the remaining 76 rescued by British tanker Narragansett. Shortly after, U-41 was sunk by British destroyer HMS Antelope, killing all 49 aboard; it was the first time a lone British destroyer had destroyed a German submarine, and Lieutenant Commander White of Antelope was awarded the DSO.
5 February 1941 Scharnhorst and Gneisenau entered the Atlantic through the Denmark Strait, and refuelled from tanker Schlettstadt some 150 miles south of Cape Farewell. After crossing 150 miles of desert in 30 hours, armoured cars of British 7th Armoured Division set up roadblocks at Sidi Saleh south of Benghazi, Libya, just in time to meet and stop the leading elements of the retreating Italian Tenth Army. In the evening, the British 4th Armoured Brigade reached Beda Fomm 10 miles north of the roadblocks, preventing Italian retreat to the east.
5 February 1942 U-103 sank US tankers India Arrow at 0153 hours (26 were killed, 12 survived) and China Arrow at 1808 hours (all 37 aboard survived) 12 miles southeast of Cape May, New Jersey. While escorting convoy ON.63, Flower class corvette HMS Arbutus (K86) was torpedoed and sunk by U-136 southwest of Ireland. Escorts Arbutus and destroyer HMS Chelsea had attacked the U-boat which responded aggressively, counter-attacking and torpedoing Arbutus as she approached. The corvette broke in half and sank, with the loss of half her crew; 43 men, including her commander, were lost. U-136 was subsequently depth-charged by Chelsea, damaged and forced to abandon her pursuit, saving ON 63 from further harm. (A modified Flower-class corvette later built for the Royal Navy as HMS Arbutus (K403) was transferred to the RNZN on completion in 1944 as HMNZS Arbutus). General Erwin Rommel's offensive was halted by the British at Gazala, just west of Tobruk, Libya. The British forces lost 40 tanks, 40 field guns and 1,400 troops. Japanese troops attacked the Pulau Ubin island to the northeast of Singapore, drawing British troops to move to that region; the actual attack would come from the northwest three days later. Out at sea, passenger liner Empress of Asia, with reinforcement for Singapore aboard and fallen behind from fellow BM12 convoy members, was attacked by 9 Japanese aircraft. The fires that resulted from at least three direct hits were soon burning out of control. She sank near the island of Sultan Shoal in the Western Anchorage of Singapore. Although the loss of life was limited to 16 killed, all of the weapons and equipment aboard her were lost; 1,804 survivors were rescued by Australian sloop HMAS Yarra. HMAS Bendigo which had been in the harbour, rescued 78 while HMAS Wollongong took off the last two, the Master and Chief Engineer. Japanese aircraft attacked Allied shipping off Sumbawa Island and Bali Island in the Dutch East Indies; several P-40 Warhawk fighters of the USAAF 20th Provisional Pursuit Squadron were destroyed at Bali. USS Houston and Dutch cruiser Tromp arrived in Tjilatjap via the Lumbok Straits; Houston had 60 dead and 100 or so wounded and her aft 8 inch gun turret was destroyed after being hit by air attacks while patrolling north of Java. The cruiser USS Marblehead arrived in the same port just after midnight. She was so badly damaged that she returned to the US via India for repair. The remaining ships in the Strike Force ~ De Ruyter and a squadron of Dutch destroyers continued on to Batavia. HMAS Vampire left Batavia for East Indies Station, she escorted two merchant ships Melchior Treub and Ophir to Colombo, Vampire was the only ship from Admiral Phillip's Force Z to survive the campaign, although she did not survive the war. The US Army Far East Air Force was redesignated 5th Air Force; the personnel and aircraft continued to move south to the Dutch East Indies and Australia.
5 February 1943 The Red Army reached the Sea of Azov at Yeisk, cutting off German troops at Novorossiisk. Mussolini personally took over the Italian Foreign Affairs after firing his son-in-law Count Ciano as Foreign Minister.
5 February 1944 US forces reached the outskirts of Cassino, Italy, but were held out of the town. German and Allied artillery pieces bombarded each other at Anzio.
5 February 1945 The Soviets began attacks on Poznan, Poland. Troops of the Red Army started crossing the River Oder, Germany. The first Allied supply convoy from Ledo, India to successfully cross the Burmese-Chinese border on 29 Jan 1945 arrived in Kunming Airfield, Yunnan Province, China.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 6, 2018 7:49:46 GMT 12
4 February 1940 The Soviet offensive at Summa, Finland broke down after heavy losses. Destroyers HMS Basilisk and Brilliant sailed from Dover for Boulogne; the former with the Prime Minister, War Cabinet and Chief of Staff. The minesweeper (sloop) HMS Sphinx sank a day after being bombed by German aircraft. SS Hop was torpedoed and sunk with all hands by U-37 near the Shetland Islands. The unescorted SS Leo Dawson was torpedoed by U-37 NE of Fair Isle. The master and 34 crewmembers were lost.
4 February 1941 Led by 4th Armoured Brigade under Brigadier 'Blood' Caunter, with the 11th Hussars in the front, 7th Armoured Division struck out across the Cyrenaica desert to cut the coast road to Benghazi, 150 miles away. In Eritrea the British forces began to attack the 30,000 Italian troops in strong positions around Keren. In the first phase of the battle, which lasted until 7 February, the 11th Indian Brigade managed to take Cameron Ridge but was thrown back from other positions by Italian counterattacks. SS Empire Engineer, a straggler from Convoy SC-20, was torpedoed and sunk by U-123, SE of Cape Farewell. The master and 38 crewmembers were lost. SS Ringhorn was torpedoed and sunk by U-52. Yesterday, SS Dione II, a straggler from Convoy SC-20, was bombed and damaged by a German FW 200 Condor aircraft of I/KG 40. Today the damaged Dione II was shelled and sunk by U-93 NW of Aran Island, Co. Galway. The master, 26 crewmembers and one gunner were lost. Five crewmembers were picked up by the British SS Flowergate and landed at Glasgow. 4 February 1942 U-103 sank US tanker India Arrow 30 miles east of Delaware, United States, killing 26 of 38 aboard. The British ambassador to Egypt, Sir Miles Lampson, pressed King Farouk to appoint a pro-Allied government by surrounding his palace with tanks. 13 Corps, British Eighth Army, completed a withdrawal to the line Gazala-Bir Hacheim and was fortifying it while Axis forces held the line Tmimi-Mechili. The Japanese demanded the surrender of the Allied forces in Singapore. Believing that reinforcements were on their way, the British authorities refused. Tengah Airfield was abandoned after intense shelling and bombing. US submarine Seadragon evacuated 21 military personnel, 23 torpedoes, spare submarine parts, and radio equipment from Corregidor, Philippine Islands. The American-Dutch fleet which departed Surabaya, Java, Dutch East Indies on the previous day was detected by the Japanese aircraft at 0949 hours in the Bali Sea. The Japanese aircraft, originally flying to bomb Surabaya, attacked the fleet instead, hitting US cruiser USS Marblehead with 2 bombs (killing 15), US cruiser USS Houston with 1 bomb (killing 48), and Dutch destroyer HNLMS De Ruyter (7 killed); 4 Japanese aircraft were lost during the attack. The Allied fleet abandoned its original plans to intercept a Japanese invasion convoy due to the damage suffered.
4 February 1943 The first units of the British 8th Army crossed from Libya into Tunisia. Tripoli: Men of the 51st Highland and New Zealand Divisions - all heroes of El Alamein - formed up to march past Winston Churchill today. The Prime Minister was on a whirlwind tour of the Middle East - with a significant stop in neutral Turkey - and was spending the day with his troops. Japan's commander on Guadalcanal, Lt-Gen Haruchi Hyakutake, tonight slipped aboard the destroyer Hamakaze and hurried to his cabin, marking the end of Japan's six-month attempt to conquer the island and a first land victory in the Pacific for the Allies.
4 February 1944 In Italy, the Second New Zealand Corps was established with the task of exploiting any breach in the Gustav Line, should the depleted American 5th Army be successful in creating one. The title was one of convenience only, for the Corps was a multi-national force assembled from the 2nd New Zealand, 4th Indian and (later) 78th British Divisions plus a combat group of the 1st US Armoured Division. USS Yorktown (Essex-class) and her task group retired to the Fleet anchorage at recently secured Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands.
4 February 1945 Belgium was reported free of German forces as of this date. The first of seven Ruhr dams in Germany was captured by the US First Army. The Conference at Yalta, in the Crimea began. The main participants were Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Seventy American B-29 Superfortress bombers dropped 160 tons of incendiaries on the Japanese city of Kobe. Most of its building were made of wood and they blazed instantly. The US submarine Barbel (SS-316), commanded by Conde L. Raguet, was sunk by Japanese aircraft off Palawan Island. All hands were lost. Advance units of the US 1st Cavalry Division reached Manila.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 4, 2018 22:39:27 GMT 12
The "de-milling" (hadn't heard that term before!) of the front and rear turrets of the RNZAF Sunderland fleet took place in period October/November 1961 - I have a note on this mod somewhere. There are several mentions in the 5 Squadron and Hobsonville histories. I think the mountings for the (never-used) bow guns were also removed at this time. The beam mountings for the .50 calibre Brownings were now the only machine gun positions fitted on RNZAF aircraft, although much later the Iroquois re-introduced flexible machine guns back into the RNZAF. Anybody got a date for this modification? David D David, I've been sorting through some small turret parts at MOTAT that presumably were left over from this mod program. Interestingly they are all painted black. When I've been stripping the green off the spare turrets I find black underneath. I can't find any close-up photos pre-1960 that might confirm what the interior colour scheme was in the turrets prior to the mod. Does anyone have a photo that would clarify whether the mod also included a change of colour?
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 4, 2018 21:50:17 GMT 12
3 February 1940 In Soviet air raids 10 were killed and 14 wounded at Seinäjoki and 34 killed and 38 wounded at Kuopio, Finland. A Heinkel He-111 bomber was the first German plane shot down over England, near Whitby, North Yorkshire. Flight Lieutenant Peter Townsend flying a Hurricane fighter of 43 Squadron shared credit. German bombers attacked British minesweepers Sphinx, Speedwell and Skipjack near the mouth of the Moray Firth in northern Scotland. Sphinx was struck by a bomb on the aft deck, killing 54 including the captain. Survivors were transferred to HMS Speedwell. Sphinx capsized 19 hours later.
3 February 1941 U-107 sank British ship Empire Citizen 300 miles south of Iceland; 77 were killed, 5 survived. Later, U-107 struck again sinking British ship HMS Cirspin; 20 were killed, 121 survived. The German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau broke out of the North Sea into the Atlantic under the command of Admiral Lutjens. Italian troops in Eritrea, Italian East Africa withdrew into towns in the mountains.
3 February 1942 German forces of Army Group Centre launched a counterattack at Vjasma, cutting off and encircling several Soviet divisions. In Libya, British 1st Armoured Division evacuated Mechili while Indian 4th Division evacuated Derna. Burmese 2nd Infantry Brigade and a part of the Indian 17th Division withdrew from Martaban, Burma toward the Bilin River. The last of the Australian Gull Force on Ambon, Dutch East Indies surrendered the town of Kudamati to the Japanese. Japanese naval land attack planes bombed ABDA operating base at Surabaya. At Singosari Airfield, four fully loaded USAAF Far East Air Force (FEAF) B-17s were destroyed and a fifth B-17 shot down. Three Royal Netherlands Navy Catalina flying boats were destroyed at Surabaya and a FEAF B-18 Bolo bringing radar technicians from Australia to Java was shot down with the loss of all aboard. Six Japanese flying boats from Rabaul, bombed the Seven Mile airfield near Port Moresby.
3 February 1943 The American troopship USAT Dorchester wass torpedoed and sunk off Greenland. Of 902 Soldiers, sailors and civilians on board, 675 died. Four Army chaplains gave up their lifebelts to soldiers who have none, all four perished with the ship. U-265 (Type VIIC) was sunk south of Iceland, by depth charges from a British B-17 aircraft (Sqdn. 220/N). 46 dead (all hands lost).
3 February 1944 Stalin announced the trapping of ten German divisions in the Dniepr Bend in the biggest encirclement since Stalingrad. Meanwhile, in the north, General Govorov's troops crossed the Estonian border in their great Leningrad offensive. At Anzio, allied soldiers were suffering a massive artillery barrage as the German Fourteenth Army prepared a full-scale counter-attack on the salient created by the British 1st Division. United States warships shelled Paramushiru Island in the first attack on Japanese home territory. 3 February 1945 Soviet troops captured Landsberg, Germany. Frank Messervy ordered his Indian 4th Corps to attack Chauk and Pagan, Burma. US forces engaged Japanese troops in Manila, Philippine Islands.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 4, 2018 17:04:08 GMT 12
2 February 1940 Soviet troops continued to assert pressure on Finnish defensive positions on the Karelian Isthmus. Meanwhile, Finnish 9th Division continued their attempt to encircle troops of the Soviet 54th Division near Kuhmo. At the Viipuri Bay, Soviet troops attempted to launch an offensive, but was disrupted by Finnish aircraft. In Soviet air raids 15 were killed and 54 wounded at Sortavala, 21 killed at Pori. U-59 torpedoed and sank British steamer Creofield 20 miles off of Lowestoft, Suffolk, England, killing 9. Later in the same general area, she torpedoed and sank British steamer Portelet, killing 2 with 9 survivors rescued by Finnish steamer Oscar Midling.
2 February 1941 The British Legation reported from Sofia in neutral Bulgaria, that German troops were entering Dobruja and that schools had closed, possibly to provide accommodation for them. There was evidence to show that a German military mission had arrived and that German infiltration was proceeding at a faster rate. 'It is therefore possible, though not yet certain, that Germans have already begun establishing themselves militarily in this country and are no longer waiting to begin a formal invasion until the Danube is free of ice.' Torpedo bombers from British carrier HMS Ark Royal attacked the hydroelectric plant at the Santa Chiara Dam on the Tirso River on Sardinia, Italy. The attack failed to damage the facilities. One Swordfish aircraft was shot down, with its crew of 3 taken prisoner. Australian troops advanced west from Derna, Libya, continuing to push back the Italian troops. Meanwhile, Richard O'Connor received the authorization from Archibald Wavell to use tanks of British 7th Armoured Division to flank the Italian retreat. The Luftwaffe began to operate on the Libyan front. The attacking planes, which raided an advanced British position in Libya, could not be identified with certainty, but observers were convinced that they were German because of the style of the attack. Also, the planes did not appear to carry the standard Italian markings. Indian 5th Division captured Italian fortifications defended by 8,000 troops and 32 field guns at Barentu, Eritrea, Italian East Africa. To the east in the Indian Ocean, carrier HMS Formidable launched aircraft to mine the harbour of Mogadishu, Italian Somaliland. German armed merchant cruiser Atlantis stopped and captured Norwegian tanker Ketty Brøvig in the Indian Ocean overnight. With 6,370 tons of fuel oil and 4,125 tons of diesel oil aboard, Ketty Brøvig was to be used as a supply ship for German raiders and warships deployed at sea.
2 February 1942 U-751 damaged Dutch tanker Corilla off Halifax, Nova Scotia; Corilla was able to return to Halifax for repairs. To the south, U-103 sank US tanker W. L. Steed 60 miles east of Virginia, killing 34 of 38 aboard. On the far side of the Atlantic, near Pico Island of the Azores islands, destroyer HMS Westcott sank U-581 with depth charges; 3 were killed, 37 of the survivors were captured; Leutnant zur see Walter Sitek avoided capture and swam 6 kilometres to shore and eventually returned to service via Spain. HMS Indomitable, with her escorting Australian destroyers Nizam, Nestor and Napier, arrived at Trincomalee, Ceylon. US B-17 bombers, based in the Dutch East Indies, attacked airfields in Kuantan and Kuala Lumpur in Malaya. Japanese aircraft attacked naval facilities at Singapore, forcing Allied warships to withdraw to the Dutch East Indies. On Ambon, Dutch East Indies, Australian troops fell back to Amahusu while Japanese troops attacked various pockets of resistance. Japanese warships began to patrol in waters near Java, Dutch East Indies paving way for the invasion fleet. Ahead of the warships were Japanese bombers, which attacked Surabaya, Java and other military targets. Meanwhile, cruiser USS Houston, cruiser USS Marblehead, and 7 Dutch and American destroyers departed Surabaya to intercept a detected Japanese troop convoy sailing toward Java.
2 February 1943 The last of the German Sixth Army surrendered in Stalingrad. On the same day, a German reconnaissance aircraft was dispatched to fly over Stalingrad, confirming that all fighting had ceased.
2 February 1944 Luzk and Rovno, Ukraine were captured by the Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front. Germans defeated American troops in the Battle of Cisterna near Anzio, Italy.
2 February 1945 French troops captured Colmar, France. Soviet 1st Byelorussian Front reached the Oder River, near Frankfurt, Germany. With the Russian arrival at the outskirts of Stargard in Pommern, Germany (now in Poland), the Germans gave orders to evacuate the Stalag IID prisoners of war camp. The Allied prisoners, which include a large contingent of Canadians captured following the disastrous Dieppe Raid in August 1942, would march westward for 44 days along snow covered roads until eventually,liberated by an advance reconnaissance unit from the Royal Staffordshire Regiment. 88 USAAF B-29s destroyed the docks and Japanese naval base at Singapore. Japanese aircraft were sighted for the last time over Saipan, Marianas Islands.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 3, 2018 18:54:34 GMT 12
1 February 1940 Soviet artillery pieces fired 300,000 shells in the Summa sector of the Karelian Isthmus on this date at the start of a new Soviet offensive against the Finnish forces. U-13 torpedoed and sank Swedish steamer Fram in the Aberdour Bay, Scotland at 0143 hours. 9 were killed and 14 were rescued by destroyer HMS Khartoum and armed trawler HMS Viking Deeps. U-59 torpedoed and sank British collier MS Ellen M. 20 miles east of Southwold, Suffolk, England, killing the entire crew of 9.
1 February 1941 U-48 sank Greek ship SS Nicolas Angelos with a torpedo and shots from the deck gun south of Iceland at 2215 hours. The crew took to the lifeboat, which was never found. The US Marine Corps brigades stationed on the east and west coasts of the United States were reorganized as the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions, respectively; it was the first time the USMC organized units on the divisional level. The U.S. Navy Department announced the reorganization of the U.S. Fleet, reviving the Atlantic Fleet under Admiral Ernest King and Admiral Husband E. Kimmel became C-in-C of the Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbour. Indian 4th Division captured Agordat, Eritrea, Italian East Africa while Indian 5th Division captured Metemma, Abyssinia.
1 February 1942 Japanese troops reached Singapore, pausing for the following few days to prepare for a landing on the island. Meanwhile, General Arthur Percival announced that "the battle of Malaya has come to an end and the battle of Singapore has started.... Today we stand beleaguered in our island fortress. Our task is to hold this fortress until help can come." Dutch forces at Passo, Ambon, Dutch East Indies surrendered. The United States launched its first air offensive against the Marshall Islands as aircraft from US carriers USS Yorktown and USS Enterprise struck Japanese bases in the island group. US cruisers USS Northampton, USS Chester, and USS Salt Lake City also bombarded atolls in the Marshall Islands, sinking gunboat Toyotsu Maru and transport Bordeaux Maru and damaging cruiser Katori, submarine I-23, minelayer Tokiwa, and several others. USS Chester sustained damage from a Japanese dive bomber during the attack; 8 were killed, 21 were wounded.
1 February 1943 American tanks and infantry are battered at German positions in Faid Pass in Tunisia, The 2nd Btn 132nd Regiment with 4 75mm howitzers of the 4th Battery 10th Marines landed on the south coast of Guadalcanal north of Verahue. While supporting the landing, the Fletcher-class destroyer USS De Haven was sunk by Japanese aircraft off Savo Island. One bomb destroyed the bridge, killing the captain. Another split the hull plates and the DeHaven capsized and sank with 167 of her men from a crew of 299. Japanese troops began to be evacuated from Guadalcanal by 18 destroyers commanded by Rear Admiral Shintaro. They were on the first of the evacuation runs. Loading 4,935 troops at Kamimbo and Cape Esperance against fierce opposition from US PT Boats, they returned to the Shortlands with the loss of one destroyer, Makikumo.
1 February 1944 German 44th Infantry Division fell back near the Rapido River toward Monte Cassino, Italy. 1 February 1945 US First Army captured Remscheid in Germany, east of Düsseldorf. On the same day, US Seventh Army reached the Moder River and the Siegfried Line/Westwall. Küstrin, Germany, surrounded by Soviet troops, was declared a Fortress City. The Red Army captured Torun, Poland.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Feb 2, 2018 21:57:52 GMT 12
31 January 1940 Soviet forces gathered in the Summa sector in the Karelian Isthmus, Finland now grew to the size of 12 divisions and 400 heavy artillery pieces. The Finnish Prime Minister Risto Ryti travelled to Stockholm and presented the Swedish government a request for 30,000 men with equipment. U-13 torpedoed and sank Norwegian steamer SS Start about halfway between Stavanger, Norway and Aberdeen, Scotland, killing the entire crew of 16. U-21 fired two torpedoes at Danish ship SS Vidar, but both malfunctioned. A third torpedo, however, struck Vidar 25 miles east of Aberdeen, Scotland, killing 16 and rendering her dead in the water. Danish steamer Disko rescued 18 survivors while surviving a hit by another malfunctioning torpedo from U-21. The Director of Aircraft Contracts confirmed the British order for 300 Caproni-Reggiane Re2000 fighters from Italy (German intervention in April effectively vetoed the deal and British attempts to obtain the fighters through a Portuguese intermediary failed with the Italian declaration of war on 10 June.)
31 January 1941 Minesweeper HMS Huntley transporting supplies for the Eighth Army suffered air attacks by German bombers and was sunk by torpedoes, bombs and gunfire. There were 18 casualties but 56 of the crew survived. Indian 4th Division flanked and then captured Agordat, Eritrea, Italian East Africa. 1,000 Italian troops and 43 field guns were captured. German armed merchant cruiser Atlantis stopped British ship Speybank with gunfire and captured the ship. Speybank would soon set sail for Bordeaux, France where she would be converted into an auxiliary minelayer named Schiff 53/Doggerbank and serve in the German Navy.
31 January 1942 The German support ship Spreewald, disguised as British Royal Mail steamer Brittany, was carrying 200 British seamen captured from sunken merchantmen when German submarine U-333 found her. Believing she was indeed a British ship, Spreewald was torpedoed and sunk off Bordeaux, France. Only 24 crewmen and 58 POWs were rescued. U-107 sank British tanker San Arcadio 425 miles southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts at 0445 hours; 41 were killed, 9 survived. To the south, U-109 sank British tanker Tacoma Star 125 miles east of Virginia. U-82 attacked Allied troop convoy NA-2 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and sank British destroyer HMS Belmont, killing all 138 aboard. At 2331 hours, U-105 attacked Allied convoy SL-98 500 miles southwest of Ireland, sinking British Sloop HMS Culver with 2 torpedoes which detonated the magazine; 126 were killed, 12 survived. Japanese 55th Infantry Division captured the town of Moulmein, Burma one day after the nearby airfield was captured; Japanese troops captured Batugong and Passo on Ambon, Dutch East Indies. Allied defence forces completed their withdrawal to Singapore Island at 0800 hours and blew up the causeway. There were now 85,000 men from 38 battalions; 13 British, six Australian, 17 Indian, and two Malay, on the island. Carrier USS Lexington was ordered to sail south to cover the return of carriers USS Enterprise and USS Yorktown from their Marshall and Gilbert Islands raid. To that end, she set sail from Pearl Harbour with Task Force 11. New Zealand continued to dig in for war by introducing air-raid shelter regulations. Compulsory enrolment began for able-bodied men aged 18 to 65 in one branch of the Emergency Reserve Corps, either the Home Guard or the Emergency Precautions Scheme. Women were invited to volunteer for the Women's War Service Auxiliary or the EPS.
31 January 1943 RAF bombers last night used a new navigation device on operations. Called H2S, it was an airborne downward-looking radio-location system. The image of the terrain which the aircraft was overflying was reproduced on a cathode-ray tube, which the navigator could compare with his map. Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to a Russian lieutenant in Stalingrad this evening. The US 2nd Marine Regiment and 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment boarded ship to leave Guadalcanal. Some of the men were so debilitated by malaria they had to be carried on board. The 2nd Marine Regiment, heading to Wellington, New Zealand for the first time, left behind 263 dead on the island.
31 January 1944 US 34th Division crossed the Rapido River. Nearby, French Moroccan colonial troops were halted by troops of German 5th Mountain Division near Cassino and Monte Belvedere. Swift German reaction to the Anzio landings was threatening to turn the tables completely on the huge Allied army which landed here nine days ago. Operation Flintlock began: USS Yorktown (Essex-class) aviators continued their strikes on Kwajalein, Marshall Islands in support of the troops landing. Kwajalein Atoll was invaded by both Army and Marine forces. U.S. Marines seized five islands in the northern section of the atoll while U.S. Army troops seized four islands and islets in the southern part of the atoll. Prior to the scheduled invasion of Majuro Atoll by Army troops, Marine scouts were put ashore and secured the atoll without a fight.
31 January 1945 General Zhukov crossed the German frontier, thrust 12 miles deep into Pomerania and captured Driesen, 95 miles from Berlin. His men stood on the bank of the Oder river. The new advance had cut the railway line from Berlin to Danzig, and posed a threat to Frankfurt an der Oder, just 45 miles east of Berlin. Myitkyina: The Burma Road from India to China re-opened, bringing supplies to Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist armies. The road - which Chiang had named the "Stilwell Road" - ran via Ledo, Myitkyina and Bhamo. The first convoy, carrying 75mm and 105mm guns, crossed the Chinese border and was greeted with fireworks. General MacArthur’s US forces were closing fast on all sides on Manila since landing at Lingayen on Luzon three weeks ago. Clark Field, a key airbase 50 miles north of the Philippines capital, was recaptured today by XIV Corps. USAAF Seventh Air Force B-24s began the task of softening up Iwo Jima's defences. Hanford, Washington: The first weapon-grade plutonium was ready for shipment.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Jan 31, 2018 21:25:18 GMT 12
30 January 1940 In attacks on Thames-out convoy OA-80G to the west of the English Channel off Ushant Brittany, U-55 was destroyed by the joint action of an RAF Sunderland of No.228 Squadron, sloop HMS Fowey destroyer, HMS Whitehead and French destroyers Valmy and Guépard. Both destroyers and aircraft used depth charges. This was the first such successful action that a Sunderland shared credit for a sinking. German aircraft bombed shipping in the English Channel and the North Sea, sinking British cargo steamers Highwave, Giralda, and Bancrest off the Orkney Islands in northern Scotland. British ship Voreda was badly damaged and beached near Winterton, England.
30 January 1941 German submarine U-94 attacked Allied convoy SC-19 northwest of Ireland at 0310 hours, sinking British ship Rushpool; the entire crew of 40 survived and rescued by destroyer HMS Antelope. General Metaxas was succeeded as Greek Prime Minister by Alexandros Koryzis, a civilian. The Italian occupation of Derna in Libya ended.
30 January 1942 The British 1st Armoured Division in Libya withdrew toward Gazala. British troops in the southern tip of British Malaya completed their withdrawal into Singapore, thus marking the start of the siege. After sundown, British gunboats HMS Dragonfly and HMS Scorpion once again sailed for Rengit to evacuate the last of the enveloped British troops there. 27 Japanese naval land attack planes bomb Allied shipping at Keppel Harbour; the transport USS Wakefield (AP-21, ex-SS Manhattan), waiting to embark 400 British women and children being evacuated to Ceylon, was damaged by a bomb which killed 5 crewmen. Japanese 55th Infantry Division captured the airfield at Moulmein, Burma. 800 men of the Japanese Special Naval Landing Force and 4,000 Japanese Army troops landed on the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies, covered from above by carrier aircraft of Hiryu and Soryu. Without air support, the 2,800 Dutch and 1,100 Australian troops withdrew toward Passo, failing to destroy bridges behind them. Japanese submarine HIJMS I-73 was torpedoed and sunk the U.S. submarine USS Gudgeon (SS-21) about 274 miles west of Midway Island.
30 January 1943 Grand Admiral Raeder resigned after disagreement with Hitler about the future of the big ships of the Kriegsmarine Surface fleet. He was succeeded as Head of the German Navy by Admiral Karl Dönitz, who initially continued also as head of the U-Boat arm. Soviet forces recaptured the Maikop oilfields, in the Caucasus. General Paulus, of the German 6th Army in Stalingrad, was appointed Field Marshal by Hitler. German troops defeated French troops and captured Faïd Pass, Tunisia. Battle of Rennell Island: With the arrival of the fleet tug Navajo, USS Louisville was relieved of duty towing the crippled cruiser Chicago to safety. A further Japanese bomber attack resulted in another torpedo hit about 4:25 sinking the Chicago.
30 January 1944 German submarine U-278 fatally damaged Allied arctic convoy escort HMS Hardy; HMS Venus scuttled HMS Hardy after the damaged destroyer was abandoned. U-314 was sunk in the Barents Sea southeast of Bear Island, Norway by depth charges from the British destroyers HMS Whitehall and Meteor. 49 dead (all crew lost). Allied forces attacked out of the Anzio, Italy beachhead, advancing toward Cisterna and Campoleone, but neither of the two forces would be able to capture the objectives; during the process, an entire US Army Ranger battalion was destroyed. USS Yorktown (Essex-class) struck targets on Kwajalein, Marshall Islands to begin softening up the island for the landings set for the next day.
30 January 1945 While transporting civilians from Ostpreußen (East Prussia), Germany, German Navy passenger ship Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by Soviet submarine S-13, taking somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 lives, making it possibly the greatest loss of life in a single maritime disaster in history. Churchill and Roosevelt met at Malta to prepare before the summit with Stalin in Yalta. Douglas MacArthur ordered Major General Verne Mudge of the US 1st Cavalry Division to conduct a rapid advance on Manila, Philippines.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Jan 31, 2018 7:37:09 GMT 12
29 January 1940 Finnish Army 9th Division attacked the Soviet 54th Division starting at 0500 hours near the road junction at Kuhmo, Finland. German aircraft attacked unarmed British lightship East Dudgeon; 7 crew members died when their lifeboat capsized later. U-51 torpedoed and sunk Norwegian ship SS Eika in the Atlantic; 14 men were killed, while 2 (Harald Støle and Alfred Johansen) were rescued by U-51; they would be delivered to Wilhelmshaven on 8 Feb 1940.
29 January 1941 German armed merchant cruiser Kormoran sank British ships Afric Star (75 captured) and Eurylochus (11 men killed, 43 men captured, 16 crated engine-less bombers captured) 600 miles west of Freetown, British West Africa. German submarines attacked Allied convoy SC-19 en route from Nova Scotia, Canada to Britain about 200 miles northwest of Ireland. Between 0348 and 0405 hours, U-93 sank British ship King Robert, British tanker W. B. Walker, and Greek ship Aikaterini. At 0629 hours, U-94 sank British ship West Wales. At 0715 hours, U-106 sank Egyptian ship Sesostris. U-101 also attempted to attack, but she was chased off by British destroyers. General Joannis Metaxas, the Premier of Greece and hero of his country's resistance to the Italian aggressors, died at the age of 70. The Australian 2/11th Battalion entered Derna, Libya and found that the Italians had evacuated the town. British forces crossed the border from Kenya into Italian Somaliland. General Sir Alan Cunningham, Commander in Chief East Africa Command, was in command and his forces are 11th and 12th East African Divisions and 1st South African Division.
29 January 1942 On the central front, the Soviet Army continued to deepen its salient southwest of Kaluga and they reported the capture of Sukhinichi. Britain and the Soviet Union signed a treaty of alliance with Iran, thus allowing US Lend-Lease supplies to reach the Soviet Union overland. 50 German tanks forced the Indian 4th Infantry Division out of the defensive positions at Benghazi, Libya, capturing British vehicles and supplies. Additional elements of the British 18th Division arrived at Singapore; two of the ships that transported the troops were the USN transports, USS Wakefield and USS West Point, also a squad of obsolete light tanks arrived from India, the only tanks to reach Malaya. The Japanese landed at Badoeng Island and Mampawan on Celebes Island. They also occupied Pontianak, on the west coast of Dutch Borneo, site of a Dutch Naval Air Station.
29 January 1943 Soviet forces liberated Kropotkin, in the Caucasus. Battle off Rennell Island. The cruiser USS Chicago was torpedoed in a night time air strike. By midnight she was being towed south by the USS Louisville. The Japanese submarine HIJMS I-1 was detected off Guadalcanal by New Zealand corvettes HMNZS Moa and Kiwi. The I-1 was making a supply run and was loaded with cargo for Guadalcanal. After depth charging and ramming by Kiwi, the I-1 severely damaged was run aground on Guadalcanal. This submarine proved to be a treasure trove of intelligence material.
29 January 1944 Battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) was launched, sponsored by Mary Margaret Truman, daughter of Senator Harry Truman. Soviet forces cleared the important railway line between Moscow and Leningrad. General Model replaced Field Marshal von Kuchler as commander of Germany's Army Group North. Total Allied strength at the Anzio, Italy beachhead totalled 69,000 men, 508 guns, and 208 tanks by the end of this day. On the other side of the lines, German strength rose to 71,500 men. Cruiser HMS Spartan, anchored in Anzio Bay to provide air defence for the amphibious landings, was struck by an Hs.293 glider bomb close to her aft funnel at 17.56 that started fires which could not be controlled. Spartan sank at 1915 and settled on her beam in just over 30 feet of water, taking 5 officers and 41 ratings with her. There were 18 other casualties, and 523 survivors. USS Yorktown (Essex-class) and Task Group 58.1 arrived at its launching point early in the morning and its carriers (Yorktown, Lexington, and Cowpens) began air strikes on Taroa airfield on Maloelap Atoll, Marshall Islands. Throughout the day, aircraft hit Maloelap in preparation for the assaults on Majuro and Kwajalein scheduled for the 31 Jan 1944. USS Alabama bombarded Japanese positions on Roi, Kwajalein Atoll. 29 January 1945 Allied troops captured Oberhausen, Germany in the Rhine river basin. Operation Meridian II; British carrier-based aircraft had inflicted massive damage on Japan's main source of aviation fuel with bombing raids on Japanese-controlled Palembang oil refineries in Sumatra, over the last five days. The loss of the refineries meant that crude oil would now have to be shipped to Japan for refining, doubling Japan's need for tankers. American troops landed near San Antonio, Luzon, Philippine Islands unopposed.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Jan 30, 2018 20:07:51 GMT 12
Denys, the two turrets you saw at Moorabbin were those off 4108. Back in 2011 when you were contributing to the UK Aviation Forum thread about turrets, Mark Pilkington confirmed the front turret was at Bull Creek and the rear turret was still on display at Moorabbin. The turret at Bull Creek now has guns and mounts installed and has been repainted. The other day I found a photo of 4108 when it arrived at Sydney and the turret was stripped out like all the present day turrets. So it must have undergone the same mod back in c1961.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Jan 29, 2018 21:26:50 GMT 12
28 January 1940 Soviet artillery continued to bombard Poppius, Million, and other forts along the Finnish defensive Mannerheim Line on the Karelian Isthmus. Meanwhile, Finnish troops eliminate Soviet forces trapped in the Pieni-Kelivaara pocket on the north shore of Lake Lagoda. SS Eston, a straggler from Convoy FN-81, struck a mine laid by U-22 on 20 Dec 1939 and sunk near Blyth. The master and 17 crewmembers were lost. the unescorted SS Eleni Stathatou was torpedoed and sunk by U-34 about 200 miles west of the Scilly Isles, killing 12 crew.
28 January 1941 British cruiser HMS Naiad spotted German warships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the Iceland-Faroes passage at 0649 hours. Fearing this might lead to the arrival of a stronger British fleet, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau turned to the north, attempting to enter the Atlantic Ocean via the Denmark Strait instead. Italian artillery at Wadi Derna, Libya continued to pin down Australian 6th Division. 28 January 1942 The Indian 4th Division was authorized to withdraw from Benghazi. The Indian 7th Brigade, the last to withdraw, found its line of retreat blocked but broke out to the south and eventually made its way back to Eighth Army. Rommel's troops entered Benghazi as the British retreated; this was the fourth time the city had changed hands. Pilots of the 1st and 2nd Fighter Squadrons, American Volunteer Group shot down six Nakajima Ki-27 fighters over and near Mingaladon Airfield, Rangoon, Burma. In Malaya, East Force continued their unopposed withdrawal toward Singapore Island. The Japanese reached Benut and continued southward behind the Indian 11th Division; Four USAAF Far East Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses from Java staged through Palembang Airfield on Sumatra and attacked Kuala Lumpur; Only 21 of the 51 Hawker Hurricane fighters that arrived in Singapore on 13 January were still serviceable. Japanese troops landed at Pemangkat, Dutch Borneo. At Balikpapan, part of the assault force for Bandjermasin, the capital of Dutch Borneo, departed by transports. Japanese troops occupied Rossel Island off southwestern New Guinea.
28 January 1943 The Red Army completed the destruction of the Italian Alpini divisions "Julia" and "Cuneense" at Novo-Georgievka and Valuiki.
28 January 1944 U-271 sunk west of Limerick by a US Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberator aircraft VB-103/E, based in St. Eval, Cornwall. The PB4Y crew caught U-271 on the surface and dropped six depth charges causing the sub to settle by the stern and sink. 51 dead (all hands lost); U-571 sunk west of Ireland, by depth charges from an Australian Shorts Sunderland MKIII aircraft (RAAF-Sqdn 461/D, out of Pembroke Dock, Wales). 52 dead (all hands lost). In an effort to stop Spain from supplying Germany with war materials and to withdraw her troops from the Russian Front, the US and Britain announced an oil embargo. This embargo will last about 4 months until Franco finally gave in. German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring ordered a counterattack against the Allied beachhead at Anzio, Italy. Several German divisions were cut off and surrounded near Cherkassy, Ukraine.
28 January 1945 The Ardennes bulge was finally pushed back to its original lines, thus ending the Battle of the Bulge. Memel was occupied by the Russians, completing their occupation of Lithuania. Konev's Red Army troops captured the Dabrowa coal mining area and the towns of Beuthen and Katowice, Poland. The first supply convoy reached China from Burma, via the reopened Ledo Road.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Jan 29, 2018 8:13:52 GMT 12
27 January 1939 The prototype Lockheed XP-38 fighter (c/n 37-457), made its maiden flight piloted by Lt. Ben Kelsey.
27 January 1940 SS 'City of Flint' arrived back at her home port, Baltimore, Maryland following her adventures in the Baltic. SS Faro was torpedoed by U-20 about 15 miles SE of Copinsay, Orkneys. She was taken in tow, later abandoned and was wrecked when drifted ashore in the Taracliff Bay near Copinsay the next day; U-20 torpedoed and sank Danish ship Fredensborg (at 2052 hours, killing 20) and Danish ship England (at 2124 hours, killing 20) off the Orkneys as the crews of those two ships approached the damaged Norwegian ship Faro in attempt to rescue survivors; SS Hosanger was torpedoed and sunk by U-20 15 miles SE of Copinsay Light. The ship was hit by one torpedo, lost the stern and sank within two minutes. The only survivor, Magnus Sandvik, managed to reach a raft with four others, but his shipmates froze to death before a British destroyer picked him up after about 15 hours. A line was thrown down on him, but he was not able to fasten it around himself, so a man from the destroyer jumped overboard to assist. He was then brought to a hospital in Kirkwall.
27 January 1941 British troopship Ulster Prince (which would soon depart with Italian prisoners of war) and transports Cingalese Prince, Rosaura, and Chakla (the three brought in supplies and men) became the first Allied ships to arrive in the harbour of recently captured Tobruk, Libya. 100 miles to the northwest, Australian 6th Division captured Fort Rudero near Derna, capturing 290 Italian prisoners and 5 field guns, but the Italian garrison at Wadi Derna nearby continued to pose a serious threat. 830 Squadron Fleet Air Arm Swordfish torpedo bombers from Malta sank German ship Ingo 100 miles north of Tripoli, Libya. Survivors were picked up by Italian torpedo boat Orione. US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold Stark ordered the 3rd Defence Battalion of the US Marine Corps to Midway, 1st Defence Battalion to Johnston and Palmyra, and 6th Defence Battalion to Pearl Harbour.
27 January 1942 U-754 sank Greek ship SS Icarion off Newfoundland, killing 9 of 29 aboard. Off the east coast of the United States, U-130 sank US tanker Francis E. Powell 35 miles southeast of Ocean City, New Jersey (killing 4 of 32 aboard) and damaged US tanker Halo with gunfire off North Carolina; U-123 opened fire with the deck gun at the unescorted motor tanker Pan Norway east of Cape Hatteras because no torpedoes were left. Tthe tanker capsized and sank at 03.45 hours. Greek steam merchant Mount Aetna picked up 40 survivors. In the Ukraine, on the Donets front, Soviet forces seized the important rail centre of Lozovaya, west of Izyum. They now threatened the main German supply base for Army Group South at Dnepropetrovsk. German resistance was growing. Erwin Rommel sent a small column of tanks from Msus, Libya eastward across the desert towards Mechili as a feint to draw out the British 1st Armoured Division; meanwhile, his main force moved towards Benghazi. Destroyers HMS Thanet and HMAS Vampire engaged Japanese cruiser Sendai and six destroyers, which were protecting the troop transports that the two Allied destroyers were aiming to sink, off British Malaya; in the ensuing Battle of Endau, Japanese troop transports Kansai Maru and Kanbera Maru were damaged. At 0400 hours, HMS Thanet was sunk; 38 were killed, 67 survived and were rescued by friendly forces, and 31 survived and were captured by the Japanese. Also in eastern Malaya, British gunboats HMS Dragonfly and HMS Scorpion evacuated 1,500 British troops from Rengit and transported them to Singapore. Japanese troops overcame Dutch and Indian troops and captured the Singkawang II airfield on Dutch Borneo; the Allied troops retreated to Ledo, 15 miles to the southwest. 100 miles off Java, HMS Indomitable launched the 48 RAF Hurricane fighters that she was transporting. These fighters would fly to Java and Dutch Borneo; they were intended to ultimately reach Singapore to bolster defences there. Submarine USS Seawolf delivered 37 tons of .30 calibre ammunition to the US troops at Corregidor in the Philippine Islands. Upon departure, she took on 25 pilots, spare submarine parts, and 16 torpedoes. Submarine USS Gudgeon (SS-211) torpedoed and sank Japanese submarine HIJMS I-73 240 miles west of Midway Island; I-73 had shelled Midway two days earlier. This was the first Japanese submarine sunk by a USN submarine.
27 January 1943 The US 8th Air Force raided Wilhelmshaven, naval base in Germany. This was the first US raid over Germany. All previous raids had been over occupied countries. 84 Flying Fortresses and seven Liberators took part in the unescorted raid. They also hit several other targets in north-west Germany. The railway line between Leningrad and Moscow was reopened, enabling supplies to be delivered to the starving population. Unescorted MS Cape Decision was hit by two torpedoes from U-105 and sank in the mid Atlantic. The crew took to lifeboats; SS Julia Ward Howe was torpedoed by U-442 about 175 miles south of the Azores.The eight officers, 36 crewmen, 29 armed guards and one passenger (US Army security officer) abandoned ship in two lifeboats and two rafts. The master, one armed guard and the passenger were lost. After 15 hours, the survivors were picked up by the Portuguese destroyer Lima and landed at Ponta Delgada, but the chief engineer died of wounds on the rescue ship; U-514 fired three torpedoes at the Liberty ship Charles C. Pinckney. A portion of the gun crew and the gunnery officer remained on board and opened fire at 23.08 hours, as U-514 surfaced 200 yards away. The U-boat made an emergency dive and escaped undamaged. The crew reboarded the vessel, but the chief engineer discovered that he could not get steam up.
27 January 1944 The 872-day siege of Leningrad, Russia was relieved by Soviet forces after suffering 200,000 military and 1,200,000 civilian deaths. The German 18.Armee in the region was withdrawn to the Luga River. 1st Ukrainian Front launches an attack towards Luzk and Rovno, Ukraine. To the west, Allied Major General John Lucas by now commanded 70,000 men, 237 tanks, 508 heavy guns, and 27,000 tons of supplies at Anzio, Italy, but he decided to still maintain a defensive position. Germans launched a counter attack against French troops near Cassino, Italy.
27 January 1945 With the Red Army just 20 kilometres away the Germans evacuated the 11,000 prisoners of war held at Stalag Luft III to commence a march in sub-zero temperatures to Spremburg, Germany. Reconnaissance troops of the Soviet 100th Infantry Division discovered the prisoners' infirmary at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland at about 0900 hours. The remainder of the division arrived 30 minutes later. Soviet troops entered the main camp in the afternoon where they fought off the remaining German resistance at the cost of 231 lives. By this time, only 7,000 prisoners remained to be liberated in the entire Auschwitz system; the bulk had been marched away previously. In the wake of the German evacuation, Soviet forces captured Memel; the Soviets now occupied all of Lithuania. Despite of the needed coal and industry there, the Germans began evacuating the Upper Silesia region as Soviet troops approached; this included the city of Katowice, Poland. The Ledo Road from Burma to China was finally opened. Chinese troops from southern China and Chinese troops from India linked up at Muse in northern Burma, signifying the successful end of the Salween Offensive. 62 American B-29 bombers based in the Mariana Islands struck Tokyo. Japanese fighters shot down 5 bombers, while 4 others received damage and had to ditch or crash land. General Curtis LeMay met with Admirals Spruance and Mitscher for a conference at Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands, to discuss the projected American invasion of Iwo Jima.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Jan 28, 2018 21:41:42 GMT 12
26 January 1880 Douglas MacArthur was born in the Arsenal Barracks at Little Rock, Arkansas.
26 January 1916 Prototype Mk I tank "Big Willie" was driven out of the works of William Foster & Co. of Lincoln, England, by Charlie Maughan. "Big Willie" was to be taken by rail to commence Army trials at Hatfield.
26 January 1939 News of the discovery of nuclear fission was brought to the United States by Danish physicist Niels Bohr who opened the Fifth Washington Conference on Theoretical Physics today with Enrico Fermi. 26 January 1940 SS Durham Castle struck a mine laid by U-57 on 22 January off Cromarty and sank. The ship was in tow for Scapa Flow for use as an accommodation ship. The minesweeper USS Quail (AM-15) arrived at Palmyra Island with the first construction party to begin building a naval air station there.
26 January 1941 Italy mounted an unsuccessful counter-attack on the town of Klisura, Albania, captured by the Greeks two weeks ago. In Libya, Italian troops evacuated Mechili while Allied troops captured Derna. General O'Moore Creagh of British 7th Armoured Division was ordered to cut the coastal road south of Benghazi. U-105 attacked British ship Lurigethan and the escorting corvette HMS Arabis (K73) 200 miles west of Ireland; Lurigethan was already damaged by German aircraft three days earlier. Two torpedoes were fired at HMS Arabis, both of which missed. At 0212 hours, Lurigethan was hit and sank, killing 16. HMS Arabis picked up 35 survivors. (Arabis K73 was transferred to the US Navy in 1942 as USS Saucy. Later Flower-class corvette K385 of the same name was launched in 1943 and transferred to RNZN as HMNZS Arabis) The American-Japanese Treaty of Navigation and Commerce was allowed to lapse because the US government refused to negotiate in protest against Japanese aggression in China.
26 January 1942 The first American troops arrived in the United Kingdom via Allied convoy AT10; the 3,900 troops of US 34th Division would set up camp in Northern Ireland. German submarine U-125 sank American ship West Ivis 100 miles off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, killing the entire crew of 45. Three hours later, 325 miles southeast of Nova Scotia, U-106 sank British ship Traveller, killing all 52 aboard. 200 miles south of Newfoundland, U-582 sank British tanker Refast at 1858 hours; 10 were killed, 32 survived. Japanese aircraft attacked Rangoon, Burma for the fourth day in a row. Pilots of the 1st and 2nd Fighter Squadrons, American Volunteer Group shot down three Japanese Army fighters. British, Indian, and Australian troops began to withdraw from the Batu Pahat-Ayer Hitam-Jemaluang defensive line in British Malaya as ordered by Lieutenant General Arthur Percival on the previous day. On the east coast, 1,500 troops of the British Brigade of the Indian 11th Division were cut off at Rengit. At 1100 hours, Japanese 18th Division landed at Endau, 80 miles north of Singapore. At 1500 hours, RAF biplane aircraft attacked the Endau landing force, causing little damage and losing 5 Vildebeest aircraft. At 1630 hours, destroyers HMS Thanet and HMAS Vampire departed Singapore to attack the Japanese ships at Endau. Finally, at 1730 hours, another air attack was conducted by 9 Vildebeest and 3 Albacore aircraft, escorted by some Hurricane fighters; this attack also achieved little, and 9 aircraft were lost. Lieutenant General Sir John Lavarack, General Officer Commanding I Australian Corps, arrived in Java as the advance party of Australian troops preparing to leave the Middle East. Lavarack was soon convinced that the situation was “grim” and believed that the Japanese might seize southern Sumatra before the main body of his command arrived.
26 January 1943 Italian General Giulio Martinat, chief-of-staff of the Alpini Corps in Russia was killed while personally leading a successful attack to break through Russian blocking positions at Nikolajevka. Rommel was informed that Italian general Messe will replace him as commander of the 1st Italo-German Panzer Army when he is promoted to command the new Army Group Africa. The US Army-Marine joint division continued to attack westward along the northern coast of Guadalcanal intending to envelope Japanese positions.
26 January 1944 Ten U-boats attack convoy JW-56A: SS Samouri and SS Surada sunk by U-188; SS Walter Camp sunk by U-532: U-716 sank US freighter Andrew G. Curtin; 3 were killed, 68 survived. In heavy fighting, veteran Australian troops have cleared the Japanese from strategic "Shaggy Ridge", in New Guinea's rugged Finisterre range.
26 January 1945 German 17th Army received permission to withdraw from Katowice, Poland. Anglo-Indian troops landed on Cheduba Island, Burma; the landing was unopposed. USS Yorktown (Essex-class) and TF38 entered Ulithi lagoon, Caroline Islands for arming, provisioning, and upkeep.
|
|
|
Post by emron on Jan 28, 2018 19:16:27 GMT 12
25 January 1940 SS Biarritz was torpedoed by U-14 36 nautical miles NW of Ymuiden, Holland. She sank quickly and only one lifeboat with 19 people got away. 26 crewmen and 11 passengers (among them several women) died. 21 survivors and three bodies were picked up by the Norwegian SS Borgholm, which sailed nearby and were taken to Ymuiden. U-19 sank Latvian ship Everene 5 miles off of the eastern coast of Britain; 1 man was killed and 30 were rescued by fishing boats Dole and Evesham. Several hours later at 0930 hours, U-19 sank Norwegian ship Gudveig; 10 men were killed and 8 were rescued. A site near the village of Oswiecim (Auschwitz), Poland was selected for construction of a concentration camp.
25 January 1941 British Admiral Sir John Tovey departed Scapa Flow, with a fleet to intercept German pocket battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau believed to be in the Iceland-Faroes passage. Both Greek and Italian forces reported many cases of frostbite among the troops fighting in the mountains. Italian forces were reported to be also suffering through an outbreak of typhoid. HMS Illustrious arrived at Alexandria, Egypt. After sundown, British minelaying cruiser HMS Latona and destroyers HMS Hero, HMS Hotspur, and HMS Encounter departed Alexandria, Egypt for Tobruk, Libya. They were discovered and attacked by 10 German Stuka dive bombers and 2 Italian S.79 medium bombers 35 miles away from their destination. HMS Latona was hit by a 500kg bomb and sank at 2230 when the fire detonated the magazine; 27 were killed. HMS Hero was damaged by three near misses.
25 January 1942 German troops captured Msus, Libya, together with 30 British Valentine tanks. Japanese aircraft attacked Rangoon, Burma for the third day in a row. Meanwhile, Archibald Wavell ordered that the airfield at Moulmein, Burma to be defended, which was being threatened by troops of the Japanese 55th infantry Division. Troops of the Japanese Imperial Guard captured Batu Pahat, British Malaya; in response, Lieutenant General Arthur Percival ordered troops in Malaya to withdraw to Singapore. Meanwhile, Allied convoy BM10 from Bombay, India arrived at Singapore, disembarking 4,745 troops of the Indian 44th Infantry Brigade, vehicles, and supplies.
25 January 1943 Germans evacuated Voronezh and Armavir in southern Russia. A second torpedo from U-575 struck SS City of Flint on the port side aft of the bridge and the ship sank bow first at 23.05 hours about 300 miles south of Flores, Azores. Two crewmen and four armed guards died in the attack. The chief cook Robert Daigle was picked up by U-575 and was later interned in a POW camp. Three of the boats stayed in the area for two days before setting sail for the Azores. They used a portable radio for sending distress calls. The following day, the Portuguese destroyer Lima picked up 48 men and landed them at Ponta del Garda, Azores. On 28 January, destroyer HMS Quadrant rescued the ten survivors in the fourth boat and landed them in Gibraltar. SS Lackenby, a straggler from Convoy SC-117, was hit by two torpedoes from U-624 and sank south of Cape Farewell. The master, 38 crewmembers and five gunners were lost.
25 January 1944 As part of the 20-ship Convoy JW-56A proceeding to the Kola Inlet, Russia, Canadian-owned SS Fort Bellingham was torpedoed and sunk by combined attack from U-360 and U-957. Thirty-nine members of her crew were lost; SS Penelope Barker was sunk by two torpedoes from U-278. One officer, nine crewmen, five armed guards and a passenger were lost. The survivors were picked up 40 minutes later by HMS Savage and taken to Murmansk; Escorting destroyer HMS Obdurate was also damaged by a torpedo from U-360. The Red Army captured the railway junction at Krasnogvardeisk, south-west of Leningrad. The newly operational battleship, USS New Jersey (Captain Carl F. Holden), joined Rear Admiral Frederick C. Sherman's TG58.3 in time to participate in Operation Flintlock, the occupation of the Marshall Islands. Carriers Junyo, Hiyo, and Ryuho delivered 62 A6M, 18 D3A, and 18 B5N aircraft to Rabaul.
25 January 1945 German forces in East Prussia almost cut off by the two-pronged Soviet advance, began evacuation operations. They will continue until April. Soviet forces began a new offensive on the central segment of the German defences north of Budapest. British carriers set sail from Indian Ocean for Australia, on their way to join the US Navy in the Pacific. Bombardment of Iwo Jima continued, led by USS Indiana with accompanying cruisers and destroyers.
|
|