1941
British air raids on Germany continue.

Italy annexes the Yugoslavian territory of Dalmatia.

General Dentz tells the French Army in Syria to “match force with force”. The 5th Indian Division captures the Italian fortress of Amba Alagi after 18 days of fighting. The British column from Palestine (Habforce), arrives at Habbaniyah and relieves its garrison.

1942
New York ends night baseball games for the rest of World War II.

The RAF launches a major attack against Mannheim.

The Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm attacks and hits the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen off Norway, but she makes it back to Kiel.

Despite increasing losses, Churchill remains determined to continue the Artic convoys to Russia.

German forces finally halt the Russian summer offensive just short of Kharkov and let loose Group von Kleist’s with a strength of 15 Divisions (1st Panzer Army and 17th Army), of which two are Panzer and one Motorized. The Germans aim for Izyum to the South of Kharkov in order to pinch off the Russian salient. The Germans attack with their usual skill, technology, and ferocity and drive through the Russian defenses. The Germans have a 4.4-1 edge in tanks, 1.7-1 edge in artillery, and 1.3-1 edge in infantry on the battlefield. Russian co-ordination is poor and the Germans quickly gain local air superiority. Russian officers lack adequate combat experience to handle the fast pace of the German blitzkrieg, and their divisions literally come apart.

The New York Times reports on an inside page that Nazis have machine-gunned over 100,000 Jews in the Baltic states, 100,000 in Poland and twice as many in western Russia.

1943
The Japanese launch a new offensive along the Yangtze river, 250 miles north east of the Nationalist capital of Chunking.

1944
Polish troops finally capture the town of Cassino.

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Brussels, Louvain and Malines in central Belgium all occupied by troops of the 6th Army. Germans attack further into N-E France; General Gamelin, French Commander-in-Chief, gives allied troops ‘conquer or die’ order. French prime minister Pierre Laval is replaced by Paul Reynaud who forms a new government. Charles de Gaulle’s newly raised 4th Armoured division launches a counter-attack near Laon, which is easily repulsed by the Germans.

Twelve Blenheims attack enemy tanks and troops near Gembloux. Ten are shot down by fighters and one by ground fire.

1941
The German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen leave Gotenhafen in the Baltic to begin operations against British convoys in the Atlantic (Operation Rheinübung).

The Italian Army joint is forces in Amba Alagi, but at May 17 they collapse and surrender. The British Army captures 230.000 prisoners.

1942
Air Marshal Harris is given permission by Churchill for a raid on Germany by 1000 bombers. This was in spite of the fact that the RAF’s operational strength at this time was only 500 aircraft. However, it was believed that by enlisting RAF Coastal Command and the RAF’s training squadron’s, then the magical 1000 bombers could be found. Harris believed that the only way to get a commitment for strong bomber force, was to demonstrate what could be done with one. He planned to launch operation ‘Millenium’, before the end of the month.

The Russians continue to evacuate their forces across the Kerch Straits, leaving behind vast amounts of artillery and heavy equipment, which the Germans then turn upon the besieged fort of Sevastopol.

1943
The Memphis Belle completes 25th and final mission against Nazi Germany and the occupied territories.

The Luftwaffe carries out a night raid involving 89 aircraft against Cardiff in Wales.

The Germans launch a fifth offensive to destroy Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia.

1944
Kesselring orders the evacuation of Cassino. The French breakthrough is now 25 miles deep.

Merrill’s ‘Marauders’ take Myitkyina airfield after a three-week, 100-mile, Jungle march.

U.S. troops land on Wake Island and the northern coast of New Guinea, 125 miles to the West of Hollandia.

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The Red Army occupies Latvia and Estonia. Tens of thousands of “hostile’ natives and their families are rounded up and deported to NKVD prison camps around the Soviet Union.

Churchill urges Mussolini not to become involved in the war.

1941
With a raid by 111 German aircraft on Birmingham, the Night Blitz campaign against England comes to an end. Most Luftwaffe bomber formations in France and Belgium are being transferred to airfields in eastern Germany and occupied Poland. The RAF launch a night raid on Cologne.

The Afrika Korps counter-attack against the British and retake Sollum and Capuzzo, although the Halfaya Pass remains in British hands. Berlin orders Rommel to leave Tobruk to the Italians and to concentrate the Afrika Korps near the Egyptian border. The Italian forces under the Duke of Aosta surrender to British forces at Amba Alagi in Abyssinia.

Last British reinforcements arrive in Crete.

1942
Kerch is captured by German troops, forcing the Russians to evacuate their troops across the straits in extremely difficult conditions and under heavy fire. For five days, Russian ships shuttle back and forth, finally pulling out 86,000 men, including 23,000 wounded.

1943
The Warsaw ghetto is finally cleared of Jews by the German police and security units.

Wing Commander Guy Gibson leads the ‘Dambusters’ night attack by 19 aircraft against the Ruhr dams, during which ‘bouncing bombs’ breach the Mohne and Eder Dams causing severe flooding and loss of civilian life in the Ruhr valley below them, but doing little damage to the industrial installations. Gibson is later awarded the Victoria Cross.

1944
Aircraft of RAF Coastal Command sink 5 U-boats off the Norwegian coast.

The first Jews from Hungary arrive at Auschwitz. Eichmann arrives to personally oversee and speed up the extermination process.

The 17th Indian Division counter-attacks South of Imphal.

1945
British troops land on Alderney, taking 3,200 Germans prisoner.

U-234 surrenders at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA. On 16th April 1945 she had departed Norway and was enroute to Japan with an extremely important cargo, which included technical drawings, an Me-262 jet fighter in crates, 550 kg of U-238 uranium ore for atom bomb development, several high ranking German technological experts, and 2 Japanese officers. When Kptlt. Fehler heard of the cease-fire orders on 4 May 1945, he decides to surrender to the Americans, rather than the Canadians, being in a relatively equal position to do either. Still at war with the US, the Japanese officers take their own lives rather than surrender.

Heavy fighting continues on Okinawa, as the U.S. 77th Division takes ‘Chocolate Drop Hill’.

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The German XX.Panzerkorps (Hoth) repels a counter-attack by French armored forces, destroying 125 out of 175 tanks. An attack by 6th Army (von Reichenau) against the Dyle line in Belgium is repulsed.

After the fall of Rotterdam the Dutch Army surrenders (10,000 casualties).

The German 20th Panzer Korps (Hoth) repels a counter-attack by French armored forces, destroying 125 out of 175 tanks. An attack by 6th  Army (von Reichenau) against the Dyle line in Belgium is repulsed.

In Paris, panic breaks out over reports of a German breakthrough at Sedan with thousands of civilians fleeing the city for the west and

south of the country, clogging the roads for Allied military traffic which is attacked by Luftwaffe bombers and fighter bombers.

RAF Bomber Command (Peirse) begins a strategic air offensive against targets inside Germany by attacking industrial installations in the Ruhr, but with minimal effect.

1941
Roosevelt tells Vichy France to ‘choose between Germany and US’.

RAF night raids on Hanover, Berlin, Hamburg and Cuxhaven.

Ernie Bevin says that he would not negotiate with ‘murderer’ Hess. It’s reported that the Dame of Sark has been deported to a German concentration camp as a reprisal for civil disobedience.

Announced that British losses in France and Norway were 13,250 killed and approximately 41,000 taken prisoner out of 437,000 men engaged.

The Luftwaffe begin preparatory attacks against Crete.

The first British jet-powered aircraft, the Gloster E.28/39, takes to the air at RAF Cranwell on its maiden flight. This was not the first jet-powered aircraft to fly, however; that honor fell to the German-built Heinkel He 178 in August 1939.

The British Army under Auchinleck, begins an offensive against the Afrika Korps and manage to recapture Halfaya Pass, Sollum and Capuzzo.

1942
Gasoline rationing goes into effect in the Eastern United States.

The Royal Navy Cruiser HMS Trinidad was attacked by more than twenty Ju-88 bombers as she was returning home after being damaged while escorting Convoy PQ-13 in March 1942.  All attacks missed, except for one bomb that struck near the previous damage caused by one of her own torpedoes during a previous engagement, starting a serious fire. Sixty-three men were lost, including twenty survivors from HMS Edinburgh which had been sunk two weeks earlier. The decision was taken to scuttle her and she was torpedoed by HMS Matchless and sank in the Arctic Ocean, north of North Cape.

British forces retreating from Burma reach the Indian frontier. General Stilwell crosses the border in to Assam in India.

1943
Stalin announces the dissolution of the Komintern, the Communist International working for world revolution.

1944
Beginning of deportation of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz.

The Germans begin a withdrawal from the Gustav Line to new positions, called the Adolf Hitler or Dora Line, some 30 miles to the South of Rome.

A Japanese attack on Hunter’s Hill, North of Kohima is repulsed.

1945
The Axis Croation forces that surrendered to British troops in Austria are handed over to Tito’s partisans who without delay proceed to massacre them, killing a total of 110,000, including women and children.

The U.S. Tenth Army is now within 2,000 yards of Naha docks.

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Admiralty order requires all owners of large boats to send in particulars within two weeks.

German forces break through the French front at Sedan.

British and French aircraft are unsuccessful in destroying the German-built bridges across the Meuse and 50 bombers are shot down by AA fire.

60 Luftwaffe He-111 bombers not having received the countermanding order attack besieged Rotterdam, devastating the center of the city.

Germans take Rotterdam as the Dutch government arrives in London.

1941
Admiral Darlan reports back to Vichy after meeting Hitler and von Ribbentrop. Vichy Cabinet approves German concessions and French counter-concessions unanimously.

British aircraft launch attacks against airfields in Syria which have been put at axis disposal by the Vichy French authorities.

3,600 Jews arrested in Paris.

Large Royal Navy and Royal Airforce reinforcements arrive in Singapore.

1942
The U.S. Congress establishes The Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), under the direction of Oveta Culp Hobby, editor of the Houston Post.

The damaged British escort cruiser Trinidad returning from Murmansk is sunk by Luftwaffe dive-bombers off the northern Norwegian coast.

The British Army, in retreat from Burma, reach India.

1943
The U.S. 8th Air Force attacks Kiel with 125 aircraft, destroying 3 U-boats.

SS day is celebrated in Oslo.

1944
French troops in Italy break through the Gustav Line.

1945
U-858 surrenders off Delaware, USA, becoming the first German warship to surrender to U.S. forces after the war ends.

Vienna radio announces the re-establishment of the Austrian Republic. The Anschluss with Germany is declared null and void. British troops occupy the German island of Heligoland in the North Sea.

The Norwegian resistance movement (Milorg) is officially disbanded.

USAAF B29′s firebomb Nagoya, the heaviest raid on the Japanese homeland so far, with 3,500 tons of bombs being dropped, which destroys the Mitsubishi works.

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Supported by waves of Luftwaffe Stuka dive-bombers, the two German Panzer Korps of Heeresgruppe B establish bridgeheads across the Meuse river, tearing a 50-mile gap in the French defenses between Dinant and Sedan. The 7th Panzer Division (Rommel) is the first division across. Dutch troops withdraw to their second and final line of defense on the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Utrecht line.

1941
German aircraft begin to operate over Iraq in support of the rebellion by anti-British Iraqi forces.

1942
The British Chiefs of staff approve a major raid against the French port of Dieppe. Initially code-named ‘Rutter’, the plan had been under consideration since March by Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations, who wanting to explore the problems of an opposed landing on the French coast.

The siege of Leningrad continues. Tanya Savicheva, a young girl, writes in her address book, “Mummy 13th May at 7.30 morning 1942. The Savichevs are dead, all dead, only Tanya remains.” Her book also lists the death of her brothers, grandmother, and two uncles. Evacuated to Gorky on the Volga, Tanya herself dies of chronic dysentery in the summer of 1943.

1943
For the first time in the war, the British now claim more German prisoners than the Germans have British.

The Royal Navy begin the bombardment of Pantelleria Island, between Tunisia and Sicily.

Marshal Messe, the Italian C in C of Tunisia, surrenders to Montgomery.

1944
The allies take Sant’ Angelo and Castelforte, thereby opening the way to Rome.

Jail Hill and other key Kohima features are recaptured by the British.

1945
The British Royal Family and allied military leaders attend a thanks giving service at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Crown Prince Olav, some members of the exiled government and the head of the allied mission, Gen. Sir Andrew Thorne arrive in Oslo.

Rear Admiral Brüning, the commander of German naval forces, arrives at Felixstowe to sign the unconditional surrender of all boats under his command.

The last pockets of German resistance in Czechoslovakia are crushed by the Red Army.

U.S. troops capture Del Monte air base on Mindanao. The Australians clear the Wewak peninsula in New Guinea.

WWII Today: May 13 is a post on World War II Dog Tags

1941
A British convoy, codenamed ‘Tiger’, arrives at Alexandria with much needed tanks and aircraft.

1942
The first contingent of the US Eighth Army Air Force arrives in Britain.

Timoshenko’s offensive grinds forward into Army Group South with two pincer attacks, one Northwest out of the Izyum bulge by the 6th Red Army and the other West then Southwest by the 28th Red Army from the Volchansk area, designed to converge west of Kharkov. The Red Army falls back towards Kerch in the Crimea.

1943
Surrender of all German and Italian forces in Tunisia (130,000 German and 120,000 Italian prisoners). General von Arnim and 25 other axis generals are claimed captured, so ending the life of the once mighty ‘Afrika Korps’ and marking the end of the three-year North African campaign.

1944
800 bombers of the US 8th Air Force carry out attacks against the synthetic fuel plants at Leuna-Merseburg, Lützkendorf, Zeitz and Brüx.

Fierce German counter-attacks are put in by the German defenders at Monte Cassino.

The remains of German Seventeenth Army in Crimea are destroyed, with the Russians taking 36,000 Axis troops prisoner.

The Japanese attacks to the South East of Imphal are broken off.

1945
British relief troops land at St Hélier in Jersey, to an ‘overwhelming’ welcome.

The German garrison in Crete under Major General Bentach surrenders

General Vlasov, commander of the anti-Bolshevist Russian Liberation Army is handed over to the Russians by the Americans and will be executed for treason in August, 1946.

Very heavy fighting continues on Okinawa, with 125 Japanese aircraft being reported as shot down.

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Seven out of eight Battles fail to return from an attack on enemy forces in Luxembourg. No. 114 Sqn’s Blenheims are annihilated on the ground in a low-level German raid.

German troops occupy the Duchy of Luxembourg. A glider-borne parachute detachment of 1st Fallschirmjäger Regiment led by Hauptmann Koch and Leutnant Witzig captures the “impregnable” Belgian border fortress of Eben-Emael.

President Roosevelt expresses his dismay to King Leopold of Belgium about the German invasion.

Allied troops land in Dutch West Indies.

1941
The RAF launches a heavy raid against Hamburg.

German troops complete the occupation of the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.

Japan makes proposals to the USA in order to improve relations. They demand that the USA stop supplying war materials to China and that they normalize trade relations. These are rejected by the USA, although both sides agree to continue talks.

The Luftwaffe sinks three British destroyers, Lively, Kipling and Jackal to the South of Crete.

German troops continue their attack at Sevastopol, surrounding some defenders at Ak-Monay. The Luftwaffe is making about 1,800 sorties per day.

British retreat across Chindwin completed.

1943
The British evacuate Maumgdaw before the monsoon arrives in the Arakan. All ground gained since September 1942 for the loss of 5,000 battle casualties is lost.

1944
The British Eighth and U.S. Fifth Armies begin an attack on Gustav Line in central Italy with a 2,200-gun bombardment.

72,000 Chinese begin an advance along the Burma Road.

1945
The German garrison at Dunkirk surrenders to Czech troops.

The Red Army launches a final assault against the remnants of Army Group Centre, which is still holding out in Moravia.

In a new offensive, the U.S. Tenth Army reaches the suburbs of Naha, the capital of Okinawa. Wewak is captured by the 6th Australian Division.

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Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns and is replaced by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, who forms a coalition government from all three main parties.

The Luftwaffe launches a massive attack against London, the heaviest so far received by the capital. One third of all streets within Greater London are rendered impassible and 155,000 family’s are left without gas, water and electricity. Westminster Abbey, House of Commons, Tower of London and the Royal Mint are all hit. A record 1,436 people are killed and 1,792 are seriously injured.

Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy and former World War 1 fighter pilot, flies from Augsburg to Scotland to persuade anti-Churchill politicians that England should stop the war with Germany, adopt a neutral attitude and allow Germany to eliminate the Bolshevik menace and gain Lebensraum in the East. He is taken to a secret location, interrogated and then held incommunicado at various places until the end of the war, later to be charged and condemned as a major war criminal at Nuremberg.

1942
Kesselring declares that Malta has been neutralized. However, that same day the Axis air forces found themselves outnumbered for the first time in the sky over Malta, losing 12 aircraft in return for 3 RAF Spitfires. This marked a definite turning point in the fortunes of Malta with Axis air activity slackening noticeably as aircraft were drawn off to Russia.

Winston Churchill warns that Britain will use poison gas on Germany if the Germans do so on the Soviet Union. The battle for Sevastopol rumbles on, with the Russian Coastal Army fielding 106,000 men, 600 guns, 100 mortars, 38 tanks, and 55 planes. The Germans hurl 204,000 men, 670 guns, 450 mortars, 720 tanks, and 600 aircraft at Sevastopol. The Germans also move in 19 motor torpedo boats, 30 patrol boats, eight ASW boats, and a unit of 150 bombers trained in anti-shipping operations. German artillery ranges from 76mm field guns to mammoth 800-mm railway-mounted super-heavy siege mortars.

The Germans open up a new death camp just outside Minsk, near the village of Maly Trostenets. Russian POW’s and Jews have been forced to build the barracks for 600 slave labourers and their German and Ukrainian guards. Tens of thousands of Austrian, German, and Czech Jews are shipped there and driven towards the village in mobile gas chambers. When the vans reach the camp, all inside them are dead. At the camp, the slave labourers bury the bodies in deep pits. Maly Trostenets remains a tight German secret.

General William Sharp, commanding the Central Philippines orders the surrender of the remaining US and Filipino forces to the Japanese, thus ending resistance throughout the whole of the Philippines.

1943
The British First Army reaches Hammamet.

U.S. troops invade Attu in the Aleutian Islands.

1944
The Free French claim that the resistance now numbers 100,000 and plead for more military aid.

1945
The first U-boat to surrenders, U-249 puts in at Portland.

Russians troops are now in control of Prague after five days of fierce street fighting between German and Czech Partisans comes to an end, during which 5,000 civilians have been killed.

The Fourteenth Army moves South in central Burma and links up with troops from Arakan in the west, trapping all Japanese to the west of the river Irrawaddy.

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The Adventures of Capt Ben Dix October 3, 1943

The Adventures of Capt Ben Dix October 3, 1943 is a post on World War II Dog Tags