NAZIS TAKE BREST-LITOVSK, GAIN IN SOUTH; SOVIET CLAIMS 5,000 PRISONERS, 300 TANKS (6/24/41)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 6/24/41 | Daniel T. Brigham, C.L. Sulzberger, Turner Catledge, Hanson W. Baldwin

[Homer_J_Simpson]

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
German Invasion of Russia – Operations, 22 June-25 August 1941
The Mediterranean Basin
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941 – The Imperial Powers, 1 September 1939

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Nazis Seize Cities – 2-3
Our Policy Stated – 4-5
The International Situation – 4
Sounding Taps over the Watery Grave of the Crew of the O-9 (photo) – 6
Nazis Must Beat Soviet in 90 Days or Face Trouble, Strategists Believe – 7
Weak Points Seen in Battle of Tanks – 7
Dies Sees the Defeat of Russia in 30 Days – 8
The Drive into Russia: Typical Opening-Day Scenes of a Nazi Invasion (photos) – 8-9
Britain to Issue ‘Mailcerts’ Here – 10
Choosy Thieves Steal $30,000 in Sable, Mink – 10
More Coal Miners Sought in Britain – 10
The Day in Washington – 10
Utopia ‘Blueprints’ are Futile, Swing Tells Brooklyn Graduates – 11
The Texts of the Day’s War Communiques – 12-13
May Soon Be at War, Kimmel Declares – 13

[Vaquero]

as much as I hate the Nazis...when watching the Hitler (errr) History Channel or the Military Channel...I tend to root for the Krauts over the Soviets when they show those battles....

my apologies in advance....I root for the allies on all other fronts..knowing in advance the outcome of it all....

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/jun41/f24jun41.htm

On the Eastern Front... The German attacks continue to make rapid gains. In the Baltics, Kaunas is captured as is Vilna, farther east, by forces of Panzer Group 3 (left flank of Army Group Center). Farther south, the Soviet garrison of the fortress town of Brest-Litovsk, which is now far behind the front line, is assaulted by forces of German 4th Army (right flank of Army Group Center).

In Washington... At a press conference President Roosevelt announces that he intends to send aid to the USSR.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/24.htm

June 24th, 1941

UNITED KINGDOM: Westminster: The Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, announces an Anglo-Soviet mutual aid agreement.
EUROPE: Recruitment of volunteers willing to fight with Germany on the eastern front begins in Spain and Denmark.

GERMANY: Berlin: The German News Bureau announced:

An attempt by the Soviet air force on Tuesday morning to fly weak forces into East Prussia, has been frustrated by the German air defence. The enemy aircraft encountered such accurate flak fire that they were forced to turn around at once and to jettison their bombs over open country.

The German News Office announced:

Since early Monday morning the Luftwaffe has continued its successful attacks on Soviet military airfields. Large numbers of Russian aircraft were destroyed on the first day of battle, and we can now report that a great many more aircraft have been shot down on the same day.

U.S.S.R.: Vilna and Kaunas fall to the Germans on the Eastern Front while another assault is begun on the citidel of Brest Litovsk.

Vilnius and Kaunas had already been liberated by Lithuanian freedom fighters on June 23, a declaration of the restoration of the independence of Lithuania being broadcast over the radio the same day. A national government operated from June 24 to August 5 without German recognition. (Henrik Krog)

Moscow: the Headquarters of the Red Air Force reported concerning the previous days operations:

Our aerial forces have fought successfully to protect our towns and military installations. They have fought in the air and supported the counterattacks of the ground troops. In the course of the day 51 enemy aircraft were destroyed by our fighter planes and ground defenses. One enemy plane was forced to land at an airfield near Minsk.

Moscow is bombed by 100 aircraft this night.

The German embassy staff are taken to Kostroma-on-Volga where they are billeted in a workers’ rest home for five days. Before being taken across Russia to Leninakan, near the Armenian-Turkish border, and kept their while the exact procedure for the exchange of exchange of personnel is being worked out by the protecting powers and Turkey, the country of transit. (Greg Kelley, 274, pp. 337 - 338)

Soviet submarine S-3 of the Baltic Fleet is sunk by German MTBs off Steinort or mined near the Uzhava lighthouse. (Mike Yared)(146 and 147)

NORTH AFRICA: A heavy price has to be paid for the supply of besieged Tobruk by the Royal and Australian Navy ships involved. Sloop HMS Auckland escorting the petrol carrier Pass of Balmaha to Tobruk is overwhelmed by three formations of 16 Ju. 87 and is sunk 20 ENE of Tobruk at 32 15N, 24 30E. There are 162 survivors. (Alex Gordon)(108)

SYRIA: 2/14 Bn attacks hills dominating road north of Jezzine but fail with heavy losses – the Senegalese defenders are well-prepared and courageous and artillery fire misses the mountain-top positions. North of Merdjayoun, Lt A. R. Cutler RAA (later VC) emplaces a field gun forward of 2/Kings Own to shell French posts at point-blank range. 16 Brit Bde is halted on advance from Damascus to Beirut by Jebel Mazar, towering 1600 feet above the road. French observers on the Jebel call in accurate CBF. At Palmyra, the Arab Nationalist leader Fawzi el Kawakji reinforced by French armoured cars captures a British supply convoy and attacks Warwickshire Yeomanry. (Michael Alexander)

COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: 3rd and 20th Pursuit Squadrons shifted to Clark due to flooding at Nichols airfield, 17th to Iba for gunnery qualification. SS President Pierce arrives with 96 more pilots. (Marc Small)

U.S.A.: President Roosevelt announces his intention to send aid to the USSR.

The German Charge d’Affaires in Washington sends a note to the U.S. Undersecretary of State regarding the sinking of the U.S. merchant ship SS Robin Moor by a German submarine on 21 May 1941. He writes, “I have the honor to advise you that I do not find myself in a position to pass on...the text of a message to Congress from the President of the United States for the information of my government.” The text of the message was the speech that President Roosevelt delivered to Congress on 20 June 1941. (Jack McKillop)

In baseball, the New York Yankees begin a three game series against the St. Louis Browns in Yankee Stadium, New York City. Joe DiMaggio is hitless until the 8th inning when he singles against Browns pitcher Bob Muncrief thus extending DiMaggio’s hitting streak to 36-games. Browns’ manager Luke Sewell asks Muncrief why he didn’t walk DiMaggio in the eighth to end the streak. Said Muncrief: “That wouldn’t have been fair, to him or to me. Hell, he’s the greatest ballplayer I’ve ever seen.” The Yankees won the game 9-1. (Jack McKillop)

Minesweeper USS Sheldrake laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/2011/06/day-663-june-24-1941-partial.html

Day 663 June 24, 1941 Partial

Soviet submarine S-3, although under repair and unable to dive, attempts to escape from the Latvian port of Libau but is sunk by German motor torpedo boats S-60 and S-35 using 20mm cannon, hand grenades and depth charges. 2 other Soviet submarines (M-71 and M-80) and destroyer Lenin are also scuttled at Libau.

All day, German and Italian bombers attack British sloop HMS Auckland and Australian sloop HMAS Parramatta, escorting tanker Pass of Balmaha from Alexandria to Tobruk with 750 tons of aviation fuel. At 5.36 PM, HMS Auckland is hit by a bomb which destroys her stern and then capsizes (38 killed). 162 crew are rescued from the water by HMAS Parramatta, under continued dive bomb attack, before HMS Auckland explodes and sinks. Pass of Balmaha is damaged by near-misses and towed into Tobruk by Australian destroyer HMAS Waterhen.

There was also the following message from the blogspot guy.

http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/2011/06/taking-break.html

I have thoroughly enjoyed the last 662 days of posting a daily record of WWII from 70 years ago. Unfortunately, the time commitment is just too great for me to keep up with all the events in so many theatres as the war picks up pace.

I will create an entry for each date to provide a framework to fill in details later. I will no longer post a detailed update every day, although I will do this as often as I can. Some days, however, there will be no information posted. I know this will disappoint many of you who appreciate the daily posts and it will be frustrating to see blank entries or ‘empty’ dates. For this I apologise.

I am not giving up on this project completely, only delaying it. I intend to return to this later, when I have more time on my hands. Also, I will continue reading and writing (at least in note form) so there will be some framework for a future effort. I will also use the time to find grant funding to give this daily history a permanent website rather than using Facebook and blogger.

Finally, thank you all for your support over the last 644 days. I hope together we can continue following the events of WWII.

Please feel free to record your thoughts using comments to this post.
Posted by WWII at 70 at 12:45 PM

[texanyankee]

No need to apologize, I get mixed feelings as well....

[beebuster2000]

thanks

[PzLdr]

Thank YOU, Homer. You’ve done an OUTSTANDING job! See you on the road to Moscow...

[mrmeyer]

Thank you very much for posting these threads. Keep up the great work!

[CougarGA7]

Here are some more quotes and other items from my notes today:

• "He [the Soviet soldier] is a much better soldier than the Frenchman. Extremely tough, devious and deceitful." - General of Infantry, 4th Army, Gotthard Heinrici.

• "The Russians are defending themselves desperately; heavy counterattacks near Grodno against the VIII and XX Army Corps; Panzer Group Guderian is also being held up near Slonim by enemy counterattacks." - Field Marshal Fedor von Bock

• Hoth's Panzer Group takes the town of Vilnius

• Lieutenant-General Dmitrie Pavlov launches desperate counter attacks against Army Group Center with the 11th and 6th Mechanized Corps. While the 11th Mechanized Corp was relatively weak with only 60 of 260 tanks being the newer T-34 and KV-1 design, the 6th had 960 tanks of which around half were the T-34 and KV-1 models. Despite this, poor communications and organization made this counter offense doomed from the start.

• Marshal law is declared throughout the western portion of the Soviet Union.

• Panzer Group 3 already begins reporting that the forests are full of fugitive Soviet soldiers who are "attacking from the flank and rear"

• Panzer Group 3's war diary complains that the roads restrict movement to single-file columns making it only as fast as its slowest vehicle. Additionally they made the comment that, "All routes marked as roads turned out to be unsealed, unmaintained sand tracks. The difficulties are placing great demands on the divisions."

• The 13th and 14th Panzer Divisions of the III Motorized Corps are hit by the 215th Motorized and 19th Tank Division of Major-General Kondrusev's 22nd Mechanized Crops. The Russians take heavy loses including the loss of Kondrusev and every regimental commander in the 19th Division.

• The GKO creates the Council for Evacuation to relocate industry eastward to the Urals and Siberia.

[CougarGA7]

It’s really a product of growing up during the Cold War I think. I also have a lot of difficulty rooting for the Soviets in this fight against the Germans. But when I think about it, I grew up in a world where West Germany was a strong ally and the Soviets were seen as the greatest threat.

[FW190]

"difficulty rooting for the Soviets in this fight against the Germans."

I have no such difficulty, since my father was part of Armee Group North and one of my Unkles survived Stalingrad.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

It’s really a product of growing up during the Cold War I think. I also have a lot of difficulty rooting for the Soviets in this fight against the Germans. But when I think about it, I grew up in a world where West Germany was a strong ally and the Soviets were seen as the greatest threat.

I went through the nuclear attack drills back in grade school where we got under the desk to escape the blast of a Russian A-Bomb, but I don’t feel any rooting interest for either side in this campaign. I would compare it to a dog fight staged as entertainment by the kind of people who do that.

I get wary whenever I see a pit bull in my neighborhood. Most of the ones I see serve as dangerous accessories for gang-banger wannabes who shouldn’t own a dog at all. But if I were to witness a staged fight between two of these creatures I would feel deeply sad for the dogs, and revulsion at the spectacle, and intense anger at the people who caused it. But I would not pick one and hope for it to destroy the other.

It strikes me that the battle that began on June 22, 1941 was the worst man-made disaster in history. Despite what my tagline says I don’t believe the regular people of the Soviet Union and Germany deserved that fate. Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from the history of the twentieth century is that socialism causes human suffering. WWII on the eastern front may be the most exterme example of this.

[Larry381]

I almost feel like we're losing a dear friend.

If I've read your post correctly it will be up to others on this thread to start sharing the immense load that you were carrying pretty much alone.
I guess we will see what we will see but we all owe you a debt of thanks, anyway.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Thank YOU, Homer. You’ve done an OUTSTANDING job!

You are quite welcome, PzLdr. Wow - I feel like I have been awarded the Iron Cross.

See you on the road to Moscow...

I have a feeling it will be a long and grueling road.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

I should have been more clear on that post.

It is whoever has been doing the posts at blogspot that is taking a break from posting. I Homer is not going anywhere. There's a war on, you know.

[Larry381]

When forward units of the German Army occupied Kaunas in central Lithuania on 23 June 1941, a small advance detachment of Einsatzgruppe A entered the city with them.....
The ancient town of stone buildings and chinked-log wooden houses at the junction of the Neris and Nemunas Rivers counted 35,000 Jews among its population of 120,000 people. Also known as Kovno, Kaunas had served as the Lithuanian capital under Soviet domination, and the occupying forces found four large groups of armed Lithuanian nationalists competing to help them harry the retreating Soviet garrison.

Within a day or two of the occupation, several enlisted men in a bakers’ company of the Wehrmacht Sixteenth Army encountered what was probably the first pogrom in Kaunas when they joined “a crowd of people gathered in a square somewhere in the center of the town.”

“We were quartered in an old Russian barracks,” a sergeant recalled, “and immediately started to make bread for the troops. I think it must have been one day after we had arrived in Kovno that I was informed by a driver in my unit that Jews were being beaten to death in a nearby square. Upon hearing this I went to the said square [with] other members of our unit.” On the cobbled square, lined with houses and opening onto a park, the sergeant “saw civilians, some in shirtsleeves…beating other civilians to death with iron bars.” He heard someone say that “these were Jews who had swindled the Lithuanians before the Germans had arrived.” The bystanders were mostly German soldiers. The sergeant questioned those nearest him, who told him that “the victims were being beaten to satisfy a personal desire for vengeance.” His account continues:

"When I reached the square there were about fifteen to twenty bodies lying there. These were then cleared away by the Lithuanians and the pools of blood were washed away with water from a hose…. I saw the Lithuanians take hold of the bodies by their hands and legs and drag them away. Afterwards another group of offenders was herded and pushed onto the square and without further ado simply beaten to death by the civilians armed with iron bars. I watched as a group of offenders were beaten to death and then had to look away because I could not watch any longer. These actions seemed extremely cruel and brutal…. The Lithuanian civilians could be heard shouting out their approval and goading the men on."

A bakers’ company grenadier remembered asking a medical-corps sergeant beside him “why these people were being beaten to death in such a cruel manner.”
The sergeant told him that they “were all Jews who had been apprehended by Lithuanians in the city and had been brought to this square. The killings were carried out by recently released Lithuanian convicts.” The SS had released violent criminals from prison, that is, and put them to work murdering Jewish victims to make the “pogrom” look spontaneous. The corporal counted five men wielding crowbars and “about fifteen dead or seriously injured people” collapsed on the cobblestones. Another enlisted man noticed that there were men guarding the square “wearing armbands and [carrying] carbines,” and the grenadier identified them as “some members of the Lithuanian ‘Freikorps’”—that is, irregulars. The irregulars were feeding victims to the killers, moving in and out of the square “with more Jews who were likewise beaten to death by the convicts.” In the ten minutes the grenadier could bear to watch he “witnessed the beating to death of some ten to fifteen Jews.” All the victims were men.

A similar scene confronted a colonel who was adjutant to the staff of Army Group North on his arrival in Kaunas on the morning of 27 June 1941. He passed a filling station surrounded by a dense crowd and noticed women in the crowd who had “lifted up their children or stood them on chairs or boxes so that they could see better.” He thought he must be witnessing “a victory celebration or some type of sporting event because of the cheering, clapping and laughter that kept breaking out.” But when he asked what was happening, he was told that “the ‘Death-dealer of Kovno’ was at work and that this was where collaborators and traitors were finally meted out their rightful punishment!” He moved closer and witnessed “probably the most frightful event that I had seen during the course of two world wars”:

On the concrete forecourt of the petrol station a blond man of medium height, aged about twenty-five, stood leaning on a wooden club, resting. The club was as thick as his arm and came up to his chest. At his feet lay about fifteen to twenty dead or dying people. Water flowed continuously from a hose washing blood away into the drainage gully. Just a few steps behind this man some twenty men, guarded by armed civilians, stood waiting for their cruel execution in silent submission. In response to a cursory wave the next man stepped forward silently and was then beaten to death with the wooden club in the most bestial manner, each blow accompanied by enthusiastic shouts from the audience.

A military photographer who photographed the scene (and who identified the murder weapon as an iron crowbar) nearly had his camera confiscated by a hovering SS officer, indicating just how “spontaneous” these early public massacres were. Bystanders he questioned claimed that the death-dealer’s parents “had been taken from their beds two days earlier and immediately shot”—presumably by departing NKVD—“because they were suspected of being nationalists, and this was the young man’s revenge.” The death-dealer, the photographer adds, “within three-quarters of an hour…had beaten to death the entire group of forty-five to fifty people in this way,” after which “the young man put the crowbar to one side, fetched an accordion and went and stood on the mountain of corpses and played the Lithuanian national anthem.”

[Larry381]

Thanks Homer.