Posted on 04/09/2014 5:04:40 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring
The News of the Week in Review
Two-Pronged Attack Grips the Balkans (map) – 11
Fifteen News Questions – 12
Russian Advance Throws Germans off Balance (Middleton) – 13-14
He Thought He Had It by the Tail (cartoon) – 14
Allied Forces Breach Japan’s Secondary Circle of Defense (map) – 15
Pacific Campaign at Turning Point (by Frank L. Kluckhohn) – 16
Ruling on Texas Voting Arouses Southern Rage (by Lewis Wood) – 17
“The Hand of the Present” (cartoon) – 18
Report from the Nation (by Lawrence Dame, first-time contributor, Virginius Dabney, James E. Crown, first-time contributor, Louther S. Horne, Roland M. Jones, and Lawrence E. Davies) – 19-20
Answers to Fifteen News Questions – 20
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1944/apr44/09apr44.htm#
Bukovina falls to Soviets
Sunday, April 9, 1944 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... The Bukovina region [formerly a province of Austria-Hungary] is completely occupied by Soviet forces. The Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front reaches the outskirts of Odessa.
In Algiers... Free French General Giraud is appointed Inspector General of the Army.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/09.htm
April 9th, 1944 (SUNDAY)
FRANCE: During Eighth Air Force Mission 294, 5 B-17s drop 2.752 million leaflets on Rouen, Paris, Amiens and Caen, France at 2224-2338 hours without loss. During the night, 23 B-24s are dispatched on CARPETBAGGER operations delivering supplies to the Resistance. (Jack McKillop)
S.O.E. operative Peter Lake is parachuted into the Dordogne. His mission, to train members of the members of the Resistance in sabotage and guerilla warfare in preparation for D-Day. More... (Scott Peterson)
ITALY: Twelfth Air Force P-40 and A-36 Apache fighter-bombers bomb the railroad line between Rome and Bracciano, hitting tracks, a station, and a warehouse; attack Littoria and Terracina, repair shops northwest of Valmontone and several gun positions; and bomb scattered motor transport during armed reconnaissance of the Avezzano-Sora-Pontecorvo-Ceprano areas. (Jack McKillop)
CENTRAL EUROPE: The Eighth Air Force flies Mission 293: 542 bombers and 719 fighters are dispatched to aircraft factories and airfields in Germany and Poland; the bombers claim 45-8-14 Luftwaffe aircraft; 32 bombers and 10 fighters are lost.
- 41 B-17s bomb the aviation industry at Rahmel, Poland and 96 attack Marienburg, Germany; 3 others hit targets of opportunity; 6 B-17s are lost.
- 33 B-17s bomb the Focke-Wulf plant at Poznan, Poland and 85 bomb the Heinkel plant at Warnemunde, Germany; 18 others hit Marienehe Airfield; 12 B-17s are lost
- 106 B-24s bomb an assembly plant at Tutow, Germany; 14 hit Parchim, Germany and 6 hit targets of opportunity; 14 B-24s are lost.
Escort is provided by 119 P-38s, 387 Eighth and Ninth Air Force P-47s and 213 Eighth and Ninth Air Force P-51s; the fighters claim 20-1-6 Luftwaffe aircraft in the air and 19-0-8 on the ground; no fighter support is available over the targets because of bad weather or distance: 2 P-38s, 4 P-47s and 4 P-51s are lost. (Jack McKillop)
INDIA: Japanese troops surround the British IV Corps at Kohima and Imphal.
North BURMA: Indaw: Hundreds of gliderborne troops have been dropped into Burma to reinforce the Chindits. This second wave of Chindits landed to the west of the Japanese line of communications, joining up with one of the original Chindit columns, and aims to cut the line of communications of the Japanese besieging Imphal.
Air Commando Combat Mission N0. 41 2:55 Flight Time Hailakandi, Assam to Indaw, Burma. Bombed Japanese supply dumps. (Chuck Baisden)
The Mogaung Valley is attacked by 100+ Tenth Air Force fighter-bombers and a few B-25s; the aircraft hit town areas, bridges, storage areas, support ground forces, and hit targets of opportunity in general in or near Mogaung, Kamaing, Laban, Hopin, Myitkyina, and Nsopzup; 25 B-25s and P-51s hit fuel dumps at Indaw, bomb a road near Manhton and support ground forces at Lasai; 6 B-24s bomb Mandalay railroad yards, another bombs nearby Maymyo, and 13 others mine areas near Mandalay and Magwe; also in the Mandalay area, 11 P-38s damage several locomotives, numerous railroad cars and set a steamer afire near Ywataung. (Jack McKillop)
CHINA: 2 Fourteenth Air Force B-25s sink a Japanese merchant vessel off the southern tip of Hainan Island claim 3 fighters shot down over Yulinkan Bay.
JAPAN: A weather sortie by an Eleventh Air Force B-24 over Matsuwa Island, Kurile Islands, is negative due to low clouds and fog. (Jack McKillop)
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: On New Britain Island, 23 Thirteenth Air Force B-25s bomb Lakunai; 31 fighter-bombers hit Ralum supply areas while 22 others strike Wunapope; and during the night of 8/9 April, 7 B-25s fly heckling missions against Rabaul. (Jack McKillop)
MARSHALL ISLANDS: Seventh Air Force B-24s fly a photo reconnaissance mission over Maloelap, Wotje, and Mille Atolls, and a single Tarawa Atoll-based B-25 bombs Taroa Island, Maloelap Atoll; B-25s, in a shuttle mission from Abemama Island, bomb Jaluit Atoll, rearm at Majuro Atoll, and then hit Maloelap Atoll. (Jack McKillop)
NEW GUINEA: 55 Fifth Air Force B-25s bomb the Aitape area while B-24s and A-20s hit Wewak, Boram, Cape Moem, AA positions along Hansa Bay, and barges southeast of Mushu Island and in the Wagol River; and P-39Airacobras hit troops, barges, and bridges in the Madang, Awar, Bogia and Bunabun areas. (Jack McKillop)
PACIFIC OCEAN: US Submarines sink 2 Japanese ships:
- USS Seahorse (SS-304) attacks a Japanese convoy sinks a transport about 40 miles (64 km) west of Saipan, Mariana Islands.
- USS Whale (SS-239) sinks a Japanese army cargo ship off the northwestern coast of Kyushu, Japan.
The Japanese hospital ship Takasago Maru is damaged by a mine off the Palau Islands. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Rockets and machine gun fire from four TBM Avengers and FM-2 Wildcats of Composite Squadron 58 (VC-58) in the escort aircraft carrier USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60), together with depth charges from destroyer escorts USS Pillsbury (DE-133), USS Pope (DE-134), USS Flaherty (DE-135), and USS Chatelain (DE-149), sink German submarine U-515 at 1515 hours local off Madeira Island, Portugal. 44 of the 60 man crew on the U-boat survive. (Jack McKillop)
Jim Verdolini notes in his diary: (Jim is 17-years-old and on his first ship. Some of the information was inserted postwar after conversations with his old Skipper, ComOfficer, Engineering Officer and shipmates).
April 9, 1944 Aboard U.S.S. Guadalcanal CVE60
A CVE is a small escort carrier, approximately 500 ft long, carrying a compliment of 870 men, and 27 planes. Our primary mission was to hunt and kill submarines. Our operating area on this deployment was between the Azores and Gibraltar. It was a known as U boat lane.
We kept going to Battle Stations. Our planes had spotted a sub on the surface, but it was too late to make a pass. The pilot could not get a shot at it. It was dark, and he saw it silhouetted. When he turned back it was gone. The Captain sent out another flight, and at 0130 hours (1:30AM) They spotted the sub again, and dropped depth charges. No luck. We secured from GQ for the night.
1300 hours(1 PM) our destroyers were pinging on the U boat again. At 1410 hours the Destroyer Escort Pope, dropped a depth charge pattern, and the U boat commander at 600 feet gave orders to blow all tanks, and prepare to abandon ship. We could see the sub from the bridge of our ship, and when he broke the surface, all ships fired at him.
We couldn’t tell if he was abandoning ship, or would try to torpedo us.
Four minutes later the sub slowly reared herself up and sank. We fished forty five survivors out of the water. She was U-515. We found out later, that the crew of U 515 hated their Captain. He had frozen promotions on his boat to prevent any of his hand picked crew from being transferred. His name was Werner Henke, and the British wanted him for questioning about the British ship Ceramic, which was torpedoed and only one man survived to tell about it. Seems that Henke torpedoed the Ceramic, then surfaced. He had thought it was a troop transport, but it actually had dependents coming from Australia. The people were in the water, men, women and children. But the U boat could not take any aboard. No room. He did take one soldier back to Germany, to prove that he had sunk a transport. The rest of the survivors died in the water from exposure.
Capt. Henke promised to co-operate with our skipper, if we did not turn him over to the British. However after we returned Stateside, Capt. Henke tried to escape, and was shot and killed. The U-515 had four sights on us, but our Cans (Destroyer Escorts) were doing their job, and the U Boat had to abort each time.
North BURMA: Indaw: Hundreds of gliderborne troops have been dropped into Burma to reinforce the Chindits. This second wave of Chindits landed to the west of the Japanese line of communications, joining up with one of the original Chindit columns, and aims to cut the line of communications of the Japanese besieging Imphal.
Is there a good general history of this theater (sub-theater?), or should I be looking for biographies of key figures?
Very cute hats at Milgrim’s, but expensive. $35 and $42.50 in 1944 dollars.
The only book in my library, which is also in Homer’s, is Barbara Tuchman’s “Stilwell and the American Experience in China.” It concentrates on our wartime alliance with China through the biography of our top man there.
Because so much of Stilwell’s efforts were directed to clearing an overland route to China through Burma, that theater gets a good deal of coverage. But this theater was a backwater sideshow for most of the war. It had to rely on table scraps in terms of resources, from America and Britain. So there isn’t much written about it.
I take Tuchman with a grain of salt, as I suspected her of Chicom sympathies. Other posters here have disagreed with me.
Well quality you have to pay for. You don’t want a cheap crappy hat do you? Easter is coming; you got to look your best.
Easter 1944 is today. I meant to mention it in the ping reply.
Page 10, Dr. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
Elected to Congress in 1944, served until 1971. Replaced by the current Charles Rangel.
Powell’s work to rid the nation of Jim Crow was admirable, even though he had some moral failures.
Rangel has bastardized Powell’s ideals and strives to maintain the current Federal plantation system.
I've grow tired of the who lost China issue. I don't see how it was within the power of the U.S. to save Chiang from himself, the damage done to his government by the Japanese, and the aid the Sov's gave the ChiComs. Certainly not within the constraints of the post-War politics of both parties.
I read somewhere that when Stilwell finally got his Ledo road open it never came close to carrying the tonnage the airlift still provided. Without opening a port city we just couldn't provide much to China.
On January 15, 2006, the World War II Veterans Committee (sponsors of the D.C Memorial Day Parade and the National World War II Memorial) awarded their annual Edward J. Herlihy Citizenship Award to someone known to them all.
The recipient had smuggled food to Allied POWs, and was ultimately nominated by them for a subtle sabotage mission carried out in full view of the Japanese military. The Herlihy Award cited this person’s “indomitable spirit, love of country, and the example of courage...”.
It was the most memorable day of Iva Toguri’s life. For the only American of the female announcers on WWII Radio Tokyo (collectively known as Tokyo Rose to the GIs), it had been a painful road to the veteran’s convention, including a 10-year sentence for treason due to admitted perjured testimony, a $10,000 fine, deportation proceedings, enforced lifelong separation from her husband shortly after the death of their only child, and the stripping of the citizenship that she had clung to against almost lethal Japanese pressure to renounce during wartime. The Japanese refused her a ration card as an enemy alien, for example, which caused her six-week hospitalization for malnutrition, pellegra, and beriberi.
Almost none of the recordings of her daily show, Zero Hour, survive. This show combined light music, Iva’s flirtatious and humorous banter, and news from home. She broadcast as Ann, or Annie after her favorite cartoon character, Little Orphan Annie. The scanty record, along with her own naivete during the immediate post-war period when she actually received a light-hearted award from the US Navy, contributed to the conflation of her broadcasts with those of the Japanese female announcers who did target American morale. As well, there are accusations of treason leveled at Toguri because of the narrow line she had to walk in her broadcasting.
Tomorrow and a few times this month, we will post the scripts of three of her shows taken from her FBI file, broadcast on Radio Tokyo on the corresponding dates in April, 1944. Now you can judge for yourself. Tomorrow, Tokyo Rose, born in California on the Fourth of July.
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