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Post by skorzeny on Aug 25, 2006 8:36:30 GMT -5
Carried over from another forum I am a member of. Thought people might like to know what was going on in WWII on this day. If it proves popular, I'll update again tomorrow.
1939 - Hitler orders the German attack on Poland to begin the next day but countermands the order after hearing Britain and Poland have signed an alliance and that Italy refuses to aid German ambitions in Poland.
1940 - The Luftwaffe bombs the city of Birmingham and the RAF airfields at Warmwell. In retaliation, the RAF puts the lie to Goering's extravagant claims about Germany's invulnerability and bombs Berlin in a night raid.
1941 - British and Soviet troops invade Iran to 'protect' its oil supplies from German 'tourists' and to forestall a possible alliance between the Shah and the Axis.
1942 - The Duke of Kent is killed in a plane crash in Scotland. Two Japanese transport ships are damaged and one destroyer sunk trying to reinforce the IJA garrison at Guadalcanal. Japanese troops from Buna land on Goodenough Island in New Guinea. American and Australian troops prevent a similar operation in Milne Bay. The Wehrmacht engages in serious fighting against the Red Army around Mozdok.
1943 - The Japanese at Bairoko are wiped out. Some elements have been successfully withdrawn to Arundel and Kolombangara. Soviet forces recapture Zenkov and Akhtyrka.
1944 - General Leclerc leads the 4th Armoured Division into Paris. General Choltitz disobeys orders from Hitler to burn the city before withdrawing and instead surrenders without a fight. The US VIII Corps begins a major assault of the Germans at Brest while the British XXX Corps takes Vernon-am-Seine and the Canadians take Elbeuf. Avignon in the south of France is also taken by Americans as the German 19th army retreats into the Rhone valley. Maslennikov's Soviet troops take Tartu in Estonia from Axis forces. Allied forces also engage the Germans along the River Metauro in Italy.
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Post by tordenskjold on Aug 28, 2006 9:33:33 GMT -5
1939 - So Hitler actually didn't want to go to war with England?
1940 - Don't bomb Englishmen, just don't do it! They will inevitably make you pay for it.
1941 - Hmm... Wouldn't it be interesting if the Shah had already been Hitler's ally, and what if German soldiers and hardware had secretly been transported to Iran to defend against possible allied attacks?
1942 - Shame about the duke. Read about the Japanese fight to defend Guadalcanal, never stood a chance. However, if they had a few pulp weapons with them the situation might have been different...
1943 - IJA actually withdrew their soldiers instead of letting them die fighting?
1944 - General Choltitz was a clever man. But who knows what he had done if he had a few super soldaten and ecimated troopers among his men?
(This is fun!)
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Post by skorzeny on Aug 29, 2006 3:50:02 GMT -5
For the Japanese, they could have easily held Guadalcanal if they had properly reinforced, instead of sending troops in drips and drabs the way they did (one landing was a measely 800 soldiers who were instantly ordered into a Banzai charge, needless to say the Marines butchered the slobs). Meat grinder is probably an appropriate way to describe Japanese efforts there. It also doesn't help that their 'friends' at the Soviet embassy vastly under-reported the size of the US invasion force.
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Post by skorzeny on Aug 29, 2006 4:07:10 GMT -5
August 29th
1939 - Dahlerus is used by the Germans as their emmisary to London, trying to broker various proposals. The Poles receive an offer to negotiate from Hitler, but only if such negotiations are conducted in Berlin. The Poles refuse to send any of their diplomats, having already seen how Czechslovakia fared with their negotiations with the Nazis.
1940 - The British AMC Dunvegan Castle is sunk by a U-boat. The Luftwaffe again bombs England, with several night raids on Liverpool.
1941 - A new government under Ali Furughi takes control of Iran and begins negotiations with the UK and USSR. The Soviets destroy the dam at Zaporozhye, flooding the lower Dniepr river. The Soviets also evacuate their garrison at Tallinn by sea. Similar efforts at Kronstadt fail due to heavy mining of the sea lanes and attacks from the Luftwaffe. The Finns capture Viipuri from the Soviets. In Serbia, General Milan Nedic is appointed by the Germans to head the new puppet government they have installed there.
1942 - More reinforcements reach the Japanese at Guadalcanal courtesy of Admiral Tanaka's 'Tokyo Express'.
1943 - Soviet forces recapture Lyubotin, just west of Kharkov.
1944 - Soviets and Polish communist forces announce they have found the remains of 1 1/2 million people in the former Majdanek concentration camp. The US VII Corps secures Soissons. Third Army units take Reims and Chalons-sur-Marne. The Eight Army advances to the Rover Foglia in Italy. Soviet forces capture the Black Sea port of Constanta and Buzau. British and American governments declare that the Polish Home Army is a legitimate belligerant and should be accorded the same rights as any other nation under the Geneva convention. Germany rejects this declaration and continues to treat the Polish forces fighting in Warsaw as partisans - executing any that are taken prisoner.
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Post by tordenskjold on Aug 29, 2006 6:16:28 GMT -5
1939 - Very brave of the Poles to refuse Hitler anything. They got to pay a big price for it later. 1940 - Yet again shows vulnerability of surface ships to u-boat attacks, a point proven already in the first war. I wonder why the British never seemed to realise the importance of the u-boat and make a submachine fleet of their own? 1942 - Only to meet the same fate as son many other Japanese soldiers, die through a combination of attacks on the overwhelmingly outnumbering US marines and various jungle fevers. 1943 - They had pratically won the war at that point. In our pulp setting we will have to give the German attackers an advantage right from the invasion in 41 to to make the odds even. 1944 - "Soviets and Polish communist forces announce they have found the remains of 1 1/2 million people in the former Majdanek concentration camp" must... refuse... urge... to... puke!
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Post by xeoran on Aug 31, 2006 5:30:05 GMT -5
Great idea this! Love the idea of a pulped Day in History...
On the U-boat front Tord the British never did as they rarely fought anyone with a decent navy- Germans only had subs, raiders and ultra heavy battleships, Italians were defeated quickish, Japanese didnt matter as most British fighting in the Far East was on land. Instead the British pioneered anti-Sub tactics.
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Post by skorzeny on Aug 31, 2006 7:41:54 GMT -5
Actually, the British did have quite a few subs in the Mediterranean, one of the reasons Rommel never seemed to get any supplies. If I recall correctly, a British sub took out one of France's battleships when it looked like the thing was headed back to Toulon.
The Italian navy wasn't a push over like their other services, they had a fairly formidable fleet, just incorrectly used.
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Post by xeoran on Aug 31, 2006 10:42:44 GMT -5
Yeah but nowhere near as many as the Germans had in the Atlantic. And German submarine tactics remained the most sophisticated. The Brit subs operated out of Malta and Gibralter (I think...). Well the Italian army wasnt entirely push over either (Paras, X-Mas, Frogmen, Alpini etc). Only element of the Italian Navy to be used well were their frogmen.
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Post by tordenskjold on Aug 31, 2006 12:05:24 GMT -5
The Italians would have fared much better if lead and organized properly, which the Germans knew fully well, and therefore placed them under their own leadership as soon as possible (after the death of Mussolini) had the Germans controlled them from the start I think their armies would have proved more of a challenge for the allies.
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Post by xeoran on Sept 1, 2006 4:16:14 GMT -5
True but the Italian army also needed a clean up of their officers as well as to be given more modern equipment. The trouble is that Italians would rather not serve as "subordinate" troops. Even under German commanders (like Rommel) they never did amazingly well (although admittedly Rommel just distrusted their officers and so was cagey with them).
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