Posted on 01/25/2014 4:47:13 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
25 January. The patrol from the 2d Battalion, 126th Infantry, led by Lieutenant Mohl, reported it had captured two prisoners and killed four other enemy. The prisoners had been living on native food and their morale was low. They said that all their troops were undernourished and had poor equipment, if any.
Sharp patrol actions in the Sibog-Sindaman area. Six Japanese killed.
Major General H.W. Blakeley, USA, Ret., The 32d Infantry Division in World War II
Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1944/jan44/f25jan44.htm
Germans resist Soviet advance
Tuesday, January 25, 1944 www.onwar.com
German self-propelled artillery engaged in the Ukraine [photo at link]
On the Eastern Front... Around Leningrad, Soviet forces assault Krasnogvardeisk late in the day. Meanwhile, in the Ukraine, the northern pincer around Korsun-Sevchenovsky, spearheaded by the 6th Tank Army (part of 1st Ukrainian Front), progresses throughout the day, despite resistance from German forces of Army Group South. The southern pincer, spearheaded by 4th Guards Army and 5th Guards Tank Army (both parts of 2nd Ukrainian Front), is pinned down for most of the day by concentrated German artillery fire as well as anti-tank defenses and armor. Elements of the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army achieve a limited breakthrough around dusk and begin to advance toward their objective of Zvenigorodka.
In New Guinea... Australian forces capture Shaggy Ridge, overlooking the Ramu valley.
In Italy... Forces of the US 5th Army continue attacks on the German-held Gustav Line. The Free French Corps makes some gains on Colle Belvedere. At Anzio, Allied efforts to expand the beachhead make slow progress.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/25.htm
January 25th, 1944 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Frigate HMS Dominica commissioned.
GERMANY: U-1235, U-1274 launched.
BARENTS SEA: SS Fort Bellingham, Canadian-owned, British-registered merchantman torpedoed and sunk in position 73.25N, 025.10E, by U-360, Kptlt Klaus Becker, CO, and U-957, OLtzS Gerhard Schaar, Knights Cross, CO. Thirty-nine members of her crew were lost. Fort Bellingham was proceeding to the Kola Inlet, Russia, as part of the 20-ship Convoy JW-56A. She and 2 other ships were sunk from this convoy, which arrived on 28 Jan 44. In total, the 3 ships’ cargoes amounted to 21,650 tons of military stores.
At 1833, destroyer HMS Obdurate was damaged by a Gnat from U-360 while escorting the convoy JW-56A to North Russia. The U-boat missed the damaged destroyer with a coup de grâce at 1844.
At 2012, U-278 fired a spread of three FAT torpedoes at Convoy JW-56A in snow squalls about 115 miles from the North Cape and claimed the sinking of two ships with 7000 tons each after hearing two detonations and sinking noises. In fact, both torpedoes hit SS Penelope Barker in station #12 on the port side. One struck in the #5 hold, blew off the hatch cover and beams, destroyed the port lifeboats and knocked the port AA gun out of its tub. The other hit in the engine room, toppled the stack, damaged the bridge area and engine compartment. The eight officers, 35 crewmen, 28 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in, one 3in and eight 20mm guns) and one passenger (a Royal Navy doctor, who was on board to treating one of the armed guard for appendicitis) began to abandon ship in two lifeboats, but the ship sank by the stern within ten minutes so that some men were forced to jump overboard. Some time before the ship sank the armed guard officer and the doctor went below to assist trapped seamen, both men were lost. In all, one officer, nine crewmen, five armed guards and the passenger were lost. The survivors were picked up 40 minutes later by HMS Savage and taken to Murmansk. The Penelope Barker had left New York in convoy HX-270, arriving at Loch Ewe on 26 Dec 1943. She had left Loch Ewe on 12 Jan 1944 for Iceland, where she arrived seven days later.
U.S.S.R.: The Red Army captures the railway junction at Krasnogvardeisk, south-west of Leningrad.
INDIAN OCEAN:
The unescorted SS Fort la Maune was struck by one torpedo from U-188 and sunk ESE of Socotra Island. The master, 48 crewmembers and seven gunners landed on the Arabian coast and were brought by corvette HMS Nigella to Aden, arriving on 6 Feb 1944. Fort La Maune was a North Sands-class freighter built by North Van Ship Repair Ltd., at North Vancouver, BC She was completed in Oct 42. Fort La Maune was one of 90 North Sands-class freighters built in Canada for American order under the Hyde Park Declaration and subsequently provided to Great Britain under the Lend-Lease Agreement. Hain Steamship Co., Ltd., of London managed the ship for the British government. Twenty-two of these ships were sunk and another seven were damaged. The cargo of a 10,000-ton ship equated to the carrying capacity of 300 train cars. One voyage produced enough revenue to pay for the ship. A single cargo could contain: enough food stuff to feed 225,000 people in the U.K. for a week; enough military vehicles to equip one infantry battalion; enough bombs to load 950 medium or 225 heavy bombers; or enough aluminum to built 740 fighters, plus, carried as deck cargo: two medium bomber aircraft; and sufficient lumber to build 94 four-bedroom houses. Canadian shipyards built 354 10,000-ton cargo ships, resulting in Canada having the world’s fourth largest merchant fleet at the end of the war. The oft-repeated claim is made that Canada possessed the third largest navy by war’s end but the RCN was mainly comprised of small escort vessels, many of which were of dubious value. In terms of total tonnage and combat capability, the RCN probably did not rank in the top ten navies of the world. In contrast, the Canadian merchant fleet consisted of large freighters and tankers.
GILBERT ISLANDS: 26th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) with B-24’s moved from Nukufetau to Tarawa and then to Kwajalein on 14 Apr 44.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: Eighty-three Japanese planes and numerous ships are destroyed by an Allied raid on Rabaul.
CANADA: Frigate HMCS Wentworth arrived Halifax, Nova Scotia from builder Esquimalt, British Columbia.
Corvette HMCS West York launched.
Frigate HMCS Loch Morlich launched.
U.S.A.:
Destroyer escorts USS Edwin A Howard and Frybarger launched.
Destroyer escort USS Forster commissioned.
Destroyer minelayer USS J William Ditter laid down.
Destroyer escort USS Jaccard laid down.
Anti-Aircraft cruiser USS Flint launched.
Destroyer USS Taussig launched.
“RCN was mainly comprised of small escort vessels, many of which were of dubious value.In terms of total tonnage and combat capability, the RCN probably did not rank in the top ten navies of the world.”
Who writes this crap? Who ever it is, please enlighten us . Name the other 7 navies that were “probably” larger.
( It doesn’t really matter, intelligent people know the difference between a Battleship and a puny Corvette. Dubious value? 27 U boats were sunk by RCN corvettes . And U boats sunk by a Battleship of any nation ? maybe sunk by a Cruiser of any nation ? )
It is compiled from a number of different sources. You can send comments to the compiler (Andrew Etherington) by emailing the webmaster at the linked site. He is good at responding to corrections or criticism, so be nice.
"During the winter of 1940-41, Magda Trocmé answered a knock at her door.
There stood a frightened woman who identified herself as a German Jew.
She had heard that help might be found in Le Chambon. Magda Trocmé said, 'Come in.'
"Le Chambon is a mountain village in south-central France.
Many of the villagers were descendants of Huguenots, who had fled to the high plateau so they could practice their Protestant Christianity without fear of punishment.
The residents' long-standing distrust of authority and tradition of listening to Christian conscience inspired them to help the Jews.
"Five thousand persecuted Jews found refuge in Le Chambon, but the village's response did not take place overnight.
The seeds of the people's bravery and selflessness had been growing for years because André Trocmé, the community's Protestant minister, had preached Christianity's basic lessons: peace, understanding, and love.
His was a message of nonviolence, but a nonviolence that rejected inaction and deplored injustice. The people of Le Chambon responded.
"Though hiding Jews was a crime punishable by death, the people of Le Chambon opened their doors.
'None of us thought that we were heroes,' Magda Trocmé said.
'We were just people trying to do our best.' "
That is cool.
I need to pay a bit more attention to the size of the graphic before I post it next time. It’s huge.
Lucas will be relieved over the Anzio fiasco. I wish he had been court-martialed. It was criminal not to take Cisterna and Compoleone when they were open and secure the rail line between. A lot of blood will be spilled over this fight.
I agree with your criticism of the comment about the RCN. The Canadians built a large navy in WWII and precisely the navy they needed. Their primary mission was getting convoys to and from the British Isles and killing U-Boats. For that mission, destroyers and frigates were much more valuable than cruisers and battleships.
It just seems to me that that type of comment serves no purpose other than insult those who served on those ships of “dubious value”.
When I was growing up I knew some of those men, some of my friends’ fathers were those men. They had lived in miserable , wet conditions , fed lousy food while working in a cold and dangerous environment .
I had an Uncle who served 2 years on the HMCS Restigouche , one of the six destroyers Canada had in 1939. He told me that in the Army or Air Force you got a break from it , in the Navy , once at sea , you were terrified all the time. When they carried him off in Halifax , he had TB and he was 20 years old.
And no one even knew what it was then but everyone of them dealt with their own PDSD....in their own way.
Thanks for your family and friends’ service. Let’s not forget the merchant seamen, either - they faced the same terror but were virtually defenseless.
If you find out the ultimate source of the comment, I think the forum would be interested.
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