Posted on 12/25/2011, 1:00:40 PM by Homer_J_Simpson
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/dec41/f25dec41.htm
Hong Kong surrendered to Japanese
Thursday, December 25, 1941 www.onwar.com
In Hong Kong...The British and Canadian manned garrison at Hong Kong surrender to the Japanese.
On Eastern Front... Soviet offensives continue to succeed before Moscow.
In North Africa... The advancing Allies reach Benghazi and Agebadia. The Axis forces continue to withdraw.
In the Philippines... The US defensive strategy continues with their withdrawal to the second line of defense at the Agno River. Japanese attacks continue.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/25.htm
December 25th, 1941
FRANCE: Paris: Rue des Maronites. Second attempt to shoot a French policeman by Resistants.
U.S.S.R.: The Soviet winter offensives continue to gain ground. The Germans have lost significant strength at approximately 75 percent of their June strength. Guderian has less than 40 panzers available.
Russian amphibious forces land on the Kerch Peninsula. Count von Sponeck’s XLII Armeekorps is charged with guarding it and initially do well against the Soviets. (Pat McTaggart)
NORTH AFRICA: The British 8th Army enters Benghazi and Agedabia.
PACIFIC OCEAN: Submarine HNLMS K XVI torpedoed. (Dave Shirlaw)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: The US forces in northern Luzon are holding their 2nd defence line.
Eight of the original 48 P-35As are left and the 34th Pursuit Sqd. is moved to Bataan. (Jack McKillop)
Submarine USS Sealion is scuttled at Cavite Navy Yard at Manila. Unable to sail after damaged in an air raid 10 Dec. (Dave Shirlaw)
HONG KONG: This evening the British surrender.
The Japanese flag is flying over the governors’ mansion. After 18 days of fighting, the last seven marked by continual air and artillery bombardment, the governor, Sir Mark Young, formally surrendered at 7.05pm local time. He had been advised that with the loss of reservoirs there was less than a day’s water supplied left. A communiqué from the colonial office in London said that Sir Mark took the decision to surrender after he had been advised by his commanders that “no further effective resistance can be made.”
The garrison of British, Canadian and Indian troops ceased firing in mid-afternoon following a command by radio. An isolated contingent at Stanley in the south-east is fighting on until it receives a written order to surrender.
Sir Mark is being held at the Peninsula Hotel where, in a 15-minute candle-lit ceremony, he told the Japanese C-in-C, Lt-Gen Sakai: “I am here to become a prisoner by ordering the entire British forces to cease all resistance.”
British and Japanese losses are estimated at approximately 2,000 each. However, British losses are feared higher following reports of atrocities by troops of the 229th Regiment under Colonel Tanaka, who ordered his men to take no prisoners. After overrunning an anti-aircraft battery three days ago they roped together 20 survivors and bayoneted them to death. Fifteen staff and wounded were also bayoneted in similar circumstances at a medical station captured by the 229th.
The final phase of the Japanese invasion began three days ago when 40,000 infantrymen wrong-footed the British by landing on the island’s north-east coast instead of the north-west. They then thrust south to Deep Water Bay, capturing all the high ground and splitting the defending force which London had expected would hold out for 90 days.
Sakai’s victory has been aided by superb intelligence and planning. Spies on the island, including the Peninsula Hotel barber, who now turns out to be a Japanese army colonel, had provided the troops with accurate and up-to-date maps of every British gun emplacement.
BURMA: Japanese air attack, Mingaladon Air Base, Burma.
Some 3 waves of 27 Sally Bombers with around 30 fighter escorts hit Rangoon and Mingaladon this date. No 3rd Squadron AVG losses but they lost confirmed 25 bombers and 10 fighters. Two of our 40s made belly landings after their engines had been hit
Robert (Duke) Hedman and Charles Older make ACE on this air combat.
My Christmas dinner was a cold liver sandwich and a bottle of Australian beer. (Chuck Baisden)
TERRITORY OF HAWAII: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command of US Pacific Fleet. (Dave Shirlaw)
ST. PIERRE: Yesterday the 350-strong population was given a Christmas present - the vote.
Free French sailors under Admiral Muselier, the chief of the Free French navy, landed on this cold, windswept left-over from France’s North American empire, and on its neighbour, Miquelon. Within an hour the Vichy governor, Baron de Bournat, and the island’s only known fascist, Henri Moraze, were arrested. Shortly afterwards, the island’s men were herded into the town hall to vote to remain with Vichy or join de Gaulle. The result: 98% for de Gaulle.
Merry Christmas, Professor Simpson, and thank you for chronicling the events that changed the world.
Merry Christmas Homer!
Roosevelt and Churchill at Christmas dinner in the White House
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
Sad chapter in American History-the fall of Wake Is. What happened to the survivors who become POWs even more tragic.
For those interested in the question of whether the Pope ever spoke specifically and publicly about Nazi atrocities against Jews or the Catholic clergy, this speech is a pretty good item in evidence.
I don't see any specifics in this speech -- neither Jews nor any other ethnic group are named, nor is there any general idea conveyed as to the horrors being perpetrated on tens and hundreds of thousands of innocents, not to mention millions of Soviet POWs.
Of course there were reasons, and those might be debated, but that is not the same thing as claiming the Pope spoke out forcefully against the greatest mass murders in human history.
He did not.
That’s what I was wondering as I read that article - can you give brief explanation as to what happened to them? And what a heart-breaking photo of Mrs. Devereux and their son.
I suppose they were worked as slaves to continue the upgrades to the facilities?
Approx. 100 civilian workers kept on Wake to build airstrip for the Japanese. Later murdered. All the rest taken to POW Camps in China. A few escaped. Most put on train to port, then Korea, then onto Japan proper. Worked in coal mines. Suffered great deprivations and beatings.
headline: "Pope Broadcasts Five Peace Points – 9-10"
For those interested in the question of whether the Pope ever spoke specifically and publicly about Nazi atrocities against Jews or the Catholic clergy, this speech is a pretty good item in evidence.
I have no desire to get into Papal analysis or apologetics. I feel nether motivated nor qualified. Perhaps someone better qualified than I will step in and help out.
In the meantime, my thoughts are along these lines:
I have no idea as to why then and now the Vatican chooses to use such diplomatic wording in it's releases. To this day, should rampaging muslims in Nigeria torture and burn Catholic clergy and parishoners, the best the Vatican can seemingly do is issue a vague press release calling for peace and goodwill among all peoples.
Perhaps the Vatican makes statements applicable worldwide and leaves it up to regional and local clergy to address specifics. I don't know. In the case of Homer's NYT posts, we really need to know what the Vatican paper and radio were broadcasting and compare that with what the NYT chose to make mention of.
Never-the-less, in addition to the two releases in Homer's Nov 1941 threads I already posted two you here http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2820681/posts?page=11#11 there were additional posts in the month of Nov 1941 that Homer posted here: one by the Vatican and one by an American priest.
Nov 17, 1941 p9 Mgr. Sheen says Nazi Paganism Menaces World Christianity
Nov 18, 1941 p10 Bishops Condemn Nazis and Reds
We cannot condemn too strongly the inhumane treatment to which Jewish people have been subjected in many countries
Nov18 p11 Pronouncement of Catholic Bishops
Nov 18, 1941, p12 Pronouncement of Catholic Bishops (cont)
Nov 18, 1941, p13 Pronouncement of Catholic Bishops (cont)
Nov 22 1941, p5, "Warning on Nazi Gospel Attributed to Pope Pius"
Nov 30,1941 p5, Mercy killings Draw Vatican paper's Ire
I don't see any specifics in this speech -- neither Jews nor any other ethnic group are named, nor is there any general idea conveyed as to the horrors being perpetrated on tens and hundreds of thousands of innocents, not to mention millions of Soviet POWs.
I Of course there were reasons, and those might be debated, but that is not the same thing as claiming the Pope spoke out forcefully against the greatest mass murders in human history.
I've given you a number of articles posted by Homer just from the month of Nov 1941 in which the Vatican and other Catholics condemn the Nazis and explicitly condemn the Nazi treatment of Jews. That's just the month of Nov 1941. Then there are articles from Oct-41, Sept-41, Aug-41, 1940, 1939, 1938, 1937, 1936, 1935, 1934, 1933, etc. They are there... if you want to find them
If you read these links carefully, they actually tell a story which is not so apparent at first glance.
In the first article, American bishops denounce both communism and nazism as
The American bishops also interestingly mention Pope Leo XIII's traditional condemnation of disrespect for authority.
That is most curious, considering the extremities of persecutions of the Catholic clergy itself, and of whole ethnic or social groups under Nazi control.
Well! No more than four days later, Pope Pius XII sets the American bishops straight on that subject:
"If people arise and allege that they are the bearers of a new belief or a new gospel which is not Christ's gospel, and if they make the Holy Church and its head, the Pope, the target of unheard of attacks; if they attempt to create an artificial and unreal contradiction between loyalty to God and loyalty to the Fatherland -- then the hour has come when the bishops must raise their voices because of their vows."It is the duty of the bishops to repeat without fear the apostle's words: "We must obey God rather than men."
That sounds pretty clear: the Pope called on bishops to defend the Church against secular attacks on it.
That many did so, and were murdered as a result, speaks well for them and their Church.
It also speaks well that the Pope in 1939 and 1940 supported a German army plot to overthrow Hitler, and that he was later the object of a Nazi plot to kidnap and hold the Pope hostage.
But all of this is by way of reason and explanation for the Pope's public silence on the Holocaust.
No evidence has been produced yet that the Pope himself spoke out specifically and publicly against it.
By the way, I should mention: this is not a historically controversial point, and if anyone ever does produce such evidence, I suspect a lot of standard history books will need to be rewritten.
Four days before the fall to the Japanese LtCol Walter Bayler was evacuated off of Wake because he had special knowledge of a secret weapon, RADAR. Later known as “The Last Man Off Wake Island’. My father later trained under Col Baylor as a crew chief Tech Sgt setting up Marine Air Radar Installations in the Pacific. One of his treasured possessions was a signed copy of Bayler’s book.
I forgot to mention that my father and his Marine Corps always told me when I was a kid that the last radio message out of Wake in response to a question from the Navy asking what did the marines want was “Send us more Japs” !! Probably apocryphal but it was a great story to tell a kid.
The Times actually ran that story in the Dec. 17 issue (see the last item on the last page of that post). Here is the entire article:
By The Associated Press.
HONOLULU, Dec. 16-Take it for what it's worth, but this is the story circulating in Honolulu:
When Navy officials established contact with the marine garrison defending tiny Wake Island, they asked, "Is there anything you want?"
"Yes," came the reply, "send us some more Japs."
According to Wiki - the “send us” was placed at the beginning of the coded sentence, and the “more Japs” was placed at the ending of the sentence. Two “nonsense” words were used to begin and end a sentence to throw off the japs trying to decode it.
What I find so interesting is how the military and press would print these heroic words and actions without double-checking, etc. So many from that time - “We're surrounded - we've got ‘em right where we want em” (Korea), etc.
Funny - back in WWII and the early Cold War the American press would at least use the pro-American propaganda. Now they only seem to spew the anti-American propaganda.
I was just watching an old CBS(?) special about the La Drang valley battle in Vietnam - it was made right after the battle, which was a major victory for us in so many ways.
But at the close of the special, the reporter said something like “but it is yet to be known how long the American public will be able to bear the loss of their young men dieing in this remote land”. With scenes of flag-draped coffins, etc. I was amazed as this was the VERY FIRST major battle, and they are already reading the script!!
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