Posted on 03/26/2015 4:17:22 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
James Bradley, with Ron Powers, Flags of Our Fathers
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/2/26.htm
March 26th, 1945 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: David Lloyd George, the British prime minister between 1916 and 1922, dies at Ty-newydd, Caernarvonshire, Wales at age 82.
ENGLISH CHANNEL: U-399 (German type VIIC) sunk in the English Channel near Land’s End, an unknown depth, in position 49.56N, 05.22W, by depth charges from the British frigate HMS Duckworth. 46 dead and 1 survivor self escaped with Drager gear, PoW. (Mark Horan and Alex Gordon)
Whilst patrolling off the Dutch coast in company with MTB’s 764 and 758, corvette HMS Puffin finds herself in very close proximity to what turned out to be a Biber miniature submarine which she rams aft of the conning tower. This causes the two G7E torpedoes to detonate and Puffin is lifted out of the water by the explosion. Although Puffin was able to make it to port under her own power, she is paid off and not repaired. The only casualty was the operator of the Biber. (Alex Gordon)(108)
GERMANY: British PM Churchill looks over the Rhine near Ginsberg. (Michael Ballard)
330 Eighth B-17s escorted by 450 P-51s attack an oil refinery and tank factories; and about 300 Ninth Air Force A-20s, A-26s and B-26s hit three marshalling yards.
The war weary citizens of the Third Reich were today called upon by Martin Bormann, Hitler’s deputy, to become “Werewolf” guerrillas in a last-ditch resistance against the Allies as they invade Germany. Bormann said: “The Werewolf has been born of National Socialism. It makes no allowances and knows no considerations as imposed on regular troops .... Hatred shall be our prayer and revenge our battle-cry ...”
AUSTRIA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND HUNGARY: Over 500 Fifteenth Air Force B-17s and B-24s with P-38 and P-51 escorts, attack four marshalling yards in Austria and one each in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
BURMA: Tenth Air Force B-25s and P-47s attack Japanese positions in Central Burma.
CHINA: 15 Fourteenth Air Force B-25s and 80+ fighters attack Japanese targets in southern and eastern China.
FORMOSA: Fifth Air Force B-24s TKO Airfield.
IWO JIMA: A final suicide attack by the Japanese on Iwo Jima is reported by the 5th MarDiv. During the night of 26/27 March, several hundred Japanese soldiers mount a banzai attack against North Field; 44 fighter pilots and ground crew are killed and 88 are wounded.
200 of the Japanese Garrison of 20,700 are left as prisoners.
USAAF Major General James I. Chantey becomes island commander.
RYUKYU ISLANDS: Carrier aircraft of the British Pacific Fleet carried out attacks today on airfields on the Sakaishima Islands, between Okinawa and Formosa, to prevent their use by Japanese aircraft. The role of the Royal Navy is to support the American invasion of Okinawa, the final step before the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands. A huge armada of 1,400 naval and merchant ships of many types carrying 182,000 assault troops is en-route to Okinawa. The Japanese are expected to employ the full strength of their air forces against the armada; hence the “softening up” of their airfields.
US forces land on the Kraal Islands. US aircraft from Task Force 58 and Task Group 52.1 and Royal Navy aircraft of Task Force 57 support the landings. Fifth Fleet destroyers establish a radar picket line north of Okinawa. Each ship has a fighter-director team that can guide US fighters against the Japanese aircraft while they are some distance away.
KURILE ISLANDS: Four Eleventh Air Force B-24s bomb the Asaka naval base.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Fifth Air Force A-20s, B-24s, B-25s and fighters hit numerous targets in northern Luzon. Ground forces of the Eighth Army invade Zebu supported by Marine Air Group Fourteen (MAG-14) and Thirteenth Air Force B-24s and Fifth Air Force A-20s.
NEW GUINEA: Lt Lieutenant Albert Chowne wins Victoria Cross in action on the track between Dagua and Wonginara New Guinea (posthumous) (Daniel Ross)
By the looks of the map today, it looks like everybody’s still building up their bridgeheads.
Except Patton, of course. He off to the races!
http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/rhineland/rhineland.htm
Analysis
The Rhineland Campaign, although costly for the Allies, had clearly been ruinous for the Germans. The Germans suffered some 300,000 casualties and lost vast amounts of irreplaceable equipment. Hitler, having demanded the defense of all of the German homeland, enabled the Allies to destroy the Wehrmacht in the West between the Siegfried Line and the Rhine River. Now, the Third Reich lay virtually prostrate before Eisenhower's massed armies.
Eisenhower was gratified with the results of the Rhineland Campaign. They clearly justified his tenacious adherence to a broad-front strategy. In late March he wrote Marshall that his plans, which he had "believed in from the beginning and [had] carried out in the face of some opposition from within and without, [had] matured . . . splendidly." Yet all participants did not agree with the estimate.
Since the breakout from the Normandy beachhead, the most formidable opposition to Eisenhower's broad-front strategy consistently came from the British. Part of their resistance stemmed from Churchill's emphasis on approaching Germany through Italy and the Balkans and hence the reluctance to launch DRAGOON, a key aspect of Eisenhower's plans. After the breakout, the British, most notably Montgomery, pressed for a single, fully supported drive into Germany to end the war quickly. One reason for Montgomery's demand was the fact that by 1944 the costs of the war were bankrupting Great Britain; shortening the war would relieve the overwhelming economic drain. The United States was not experiencing such pressures, and Eisenhower chose a surer, albeit more cautious and time-consuming, approach.
But Eisenhower surely had other good reasons to avoid a risky drive into Germany. Until Antwerp began replenishing Allied stores in late November, logistics remained the supreme commander's principal consideration. Quite simply, he strongly believed that the plans put forward by Montgomery, Bradley, or Patton for a single, deep drive into Germany could not be supported logistically. In addition, as evidence mounted that the Germans had recovered from their panicked flight from the Seine River, Eisenhower worried that the enemy would concentrate and hit the exposed flank of any thrust along a single axis. The quick German response to MARKET-GARDEN and their offensives in the Ardennes and the Alsace substantiated Eisenhower's concerns that the Germans were still an extremely dangerous enemy. Thus Eisenhower chose to press the German defenses continually, straining the enemy from Antwerp to Switzerland, and to increase Allied strength in men and materiel for the inevitable assault into the heart of the Reich. Consequently, he frequently changed the main Allied effort and executed secondary attacks when he saw opportunities across the broad front facing his armies. In many ways the Rhineland Campaign became a protracted, bloody battle of attrition, a battle the Allies had the resources to win. Nevertheless, for all the controversy over the single-thrust or the broad-front strategies, it is indisputable that the Rhineland Campaign ended in success, a triumph that paved the way for final Allied victory.
Eisenhower's tactful, yet determined, stewardship of a complex and often contentious coalition force made the successful conclusion of a difficult campaign possible. The indomitable soldiers fighting in the Allied cause, however, transformed the possibilities of high-level plans into victory on the ground. In incredibly harsh weather, over difficult terrain, and against a determined foe, Eisenhower's soldiers had triumphed. Of all these soldiers, the infantryman had had the hardest lot. In mid-December Eisenhower wrote to Ernie Pyle, the well-known war correspondent, that it was his foot soldiers who had demonstrated the "real heroism-which is the uncomplaining acceptance of unendurable conditions." At Aachen, at Metz, in the Huertgen Forest, in the Vosges Mountains, along the length of the Siegfried Line, and on to the Rhine River, the Allied infantryman had persevered and, through his determination, vanquished the Wehrmacht.
Well, Patton will launch a deep thrust today led by Capt Baum.
Patton is indeed off to the races. But as we will see today, impatience has it’s price. Looking at the 12th AG map, while Patton has burst out of the bridgehead, Hammelburg is still so far in the German rear that a rational commander would not consider the mission.
Big black stain on Patton’s record, far worse than slapping some GIs with combat fatigue. This was far worse than the military equivalent of sending your employees out to pick up your kids from school or wash your car. It was recklessly throwing away the lives of men under command for a personal mission, not a military one. Very very bad.
As for the German dispostions, it looks like the bridge at Remagen accomplished a whole lot; look at the number of divisions the Germans committed to try to contain the bridgehead. They stripped just about everything else. And now they’re going to pay for it.
Yeah, it was really stupid.
"Third Army troops captured 700 freight cars, fully loaded guns..."
My father captured a train loaded with Mauser rifles in southern Germany. Of course, he couldn't keep it--his unit moved on. But he kept one Mauser and brought it home. I fired it many times--beautiful piece.
Speaking of stupid...
I’m sure the “3D army” was much more convincing than the cardboard cutouts they tried the first time.
Setting his profound mistake aside, Patton is showing again that he is the master at the pursuit. With most German forces protecting the Ruhr and the south stripped to oppose the Remagen bridgehead, there is little to stop 3rd Army. Once again, 4th Armored is the tip of Patton's spear.
The Germans couldn’t really stop the Remagen bridgehead.
Patton crossing, and then Monty, left them reeling everywhere else.
So much so that the French could then go across with one rubber boat and do it successfully.
Viva la France!
:-)
lol...
It’s too bad henkster’s archive maps have run out. I have been suspecting for some time that the German units Bradley’s staff so meticulously place on his maps are remnants or nonexistent. The German maps gave a clearer idea of what was going on in their side.
I doubt they really know at this point either.
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