Showing posts with label Nürnberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nürnberg. Show all posts

Saturday, July 30, 2016

July 25, 1940: Black Thursday for RAF

Thursday 25 July 1940

25 July 1940 worldwartwo.filminspector.com Beaverette reconnaissance car
Searching the skies for Germany paratroopers, a soldier stands in a standard armored Beaverette reconnaissance car of the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards, Royal Armoured Corps, 25th July 1940.
Battle of Britain: The Luftwaffe, specifically General Kesselring's Luftflotte 2, continues pressing its attacks on the Channel convoys on 25 July 1940. They are proving successful in their mission to both destroy ships and draw the RAF up to combat. The Luftwaffe has installed some radar on the French coast, and it is making shipping attacks and air interceptions more precise. The Germans also have a wireless intercept station at Wissant that is proving useful. The beauty of the strategy from the German point of view is that the RAF fighters, acting on the defensive, must climb to meet the attacking Luftwaffe fighters who already are at altitude, leaving the Spitfires and Hurricanes vulnerable.

Sixty Stukas (II,/StG1 and IV StG1), assisted by S-boats, use the radar information to sortie against a convoy at first light. Convoy CW 8 "Peewit" loses five small freighters (Corhaven, Polgrange, Leo, Portslade, and Henry Moon), while five other freighters are damaged and two destroyers - HMS Boreas and Brilliant - are as well. Spitfires of RAF Nos. 54 and 65 arrive late, and the Bf 109s are waiting for them. JG26, still smarting from recent losses, escorts the Stukas. Adolf Galland of III,/JG26 pounces, and the British lose three planes in a hurry. The Stukas are vulnerable after their dives, and the RAF planes shoot two down. The action continues all afternoon, with both sides sending swarms of planes. During the afternoon, Ju 88s attack. The raids continue until 19:30.

After dark, it is fairly quiet. Most of the Luftwaffe activity is minelaying in the Firth of Forth, Newcastle and the Thames estuary.

Overall, it is a bloodbath at sea which appears to justify Luftwaffe chief Goering's strategy. Only 2 out of 21 ships of the convoy make it to Portland. It is estimated that the Luftwaffe lost about 16 planes and the RAF 8. This sounds like a big RAF victory, but all of the British losses are fighters, and the RAF fighter defenses are getting ground down. RAF No. 54 Squadron has been mauled over since the start of the Battle of Britain, losing five pilots and twelve airplanes. It is pulled from the line and sent north to regroup. Hugh Dowding of Fighter Command admits that "If we try to fight the Germans on a 1-to-1 basis, we'd soon have no fighters left."

Adolph Galland of JG 26 gets his 16th victory.

The Admiralty bows to the inevitable and orders that future convoys be conducted at night. This is difficult since the ships can't make it all the way down the coast during darkness.

25 July 1940 worldwartwo.filminspector.com Spitfire Mk 1
Spitfire Mk I KL-O from No 54 Squadron. On 25 July 1940, it was flown by 22-year-old acting F/L Basil H "Wonky" Way from RAF Hornchurch. It crashed into the Channel at 15:00 after Way had been credited with a BF 109 destroyed 10 miles east of Dover. Way's body later washed up on a Belgian beach.
European Air Operations: RAF Bomber Command raids northwest Germany and Holland, including Hamburg and the Ems canal.

Battle of the Atlantic: German battlecruiser Gneisenau completes temporary repairs (torpedoed by HMS Clyde on 20 June) at Trondheim and heads south to Kiel for a permanent repair. She is escorted by a large task force lead by cruiser Nürnberg and destroyers Galster, Jacobi, Lody and Ihn.

Convoy SL 41 departs from Freetown.

Battle of the Mediterranean: The Italian Regia Aeronautica attacks Alexandria and Haifa.

Convoy Hurry, the plan to ferry a dozen Hurricane fighters to Malta, is now projected to reach the vicinity of the island on 31 July. Submarines HMS Pandora and Proteus will bring in supplies need by the planes.

In Malta, it is a quiet day with no air raids. Governor Dobbie appoints Lt Col Vella of King’s Own Malta Regiment to the position of Administrative Command of all Maltese infantry and volunteers. This new position is designed to integrate Maltese peoples into the armed forces.

25 July 1940 worldwartwo.filminspector.com Pilot John Shepherd
Sgt John B Shepherd leans on the 1932 Aero Minx (which appears to have one headlight blacked out) of P/O Geoffrey K Gout, both of No 234 Squadron RAF based at RAF St Eval. A keen motorist who raced at Brooklands before the war, the 24-year-old pilot crashed to his death on 25 July near Porthtowan in Cornwall during a night patrol. Records indicate that he was disorientated when returning to the blacked-out base and pitched in a field close to a farm near Maval.
German/Romanian Relations: Hitler meets with the Romanian Premier and Foreign Minister at Berchtesgaden.

German/Italian Relations: Hitler agrees to allow Italian planes to participate in the Battle of Britain, which does not really seem necessary at this point as the battle is going reasonably well.

German Government: German Economics Minister Walther Funk gives a long speech entitled "The Economic Reorganization of Europe." It revolves around the idea of a "Greater Europe" which he admits "does not yet actually exist." He discusses a European currency union (led by Germany) free from any gold standard and notes that the "raw material situation of Greater Germany has improved immensely during the war." The Reichsmark will be the dominant currency, with all other currencies tied to it by fixed exchange rates. In fact, Germany already is doing this with Vichy France on draconian exchange rate terms.

Many of Funk's ideas sound quite similar to the later European Economic Community. It is an optimistic speech that looks forward to a seemingly early end to the war, which is the prerequisite for any of his ideas actually happening. The underpinning of the entire idea, however, is, as William Shirer points out, that the "Germans will abandon the gold standard and substitute their worthless Reichsmark, making US gold reserve useless."

25 July 1940 worldwartwo.filminspector.com Blenheim night fighter
Blenheim Mk IF of No. 25 Squadron taxiing at Martlesham Heath, watched by air- and ground crews, 25 July 1940. The squadron was used for night fighter operations.
US Government: The government ratchets up the pressure on the Japanese by banning the export of oil and scrap metal without a license. The Americas and Great Britain are excluded from this ban. This measure removes a major source of Japanese oil imports, and there are very tempting oil fields just to the south.

Heavy cruisers USS Wichita (CA 45, Rear Admiral Andrew C. Pickens) and USS Quincy (CA 39) depart Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for Bahia, Brazil on their "Show the flag" mission.

British Government: The RAF announces that it has made over 1000 raids into occupied Europe since the start of the war.

Free French: Philippe de Hauteclocque aka Captain Leclerc joins the Free French in London.

Switzerland: While the Swiss are tilting toward Germany, they still fear an invasion. Commander-in-chief General Henri Guisan delivers an impassioned address to the Swiss Officer Corps on the Rütli (Ruetti Meadow), a field of great military tradition. He exhorts the officers to be prepared to resist a German invasion and to fight to the last man in an Alpine redoubt sealed off by dynamiting mountain passes.

Luxembourg: The Royal Family arrives at the Navy Academy in Annapolis, Maryland aboard the USS Trenton (CL 11).

25 July 1940 worldwartwo.filminspector.com Pilot Brendan Funucane
P/O Brendan EF "Paddy" Finucane took off in Spitfire Mk I YT-W with B Flight under F/L William H "Bill" Franklin for his first scramble on the morning of 25 July 1940, the day after No 65 Squadron RAF had moved to the satellite airfield at RAF Rochford. During the patrol, the aircraft developed a glycol leak, filling the cockpit with vapor from the cooling liquid condensing on the engine. After the R/T went dead, the 19-year-old Irishman made a wheels-up landing back at base.

July 1940

July 1, 1940: Vichy France
July 2, 1940: Arandora Star
July 3, 1940: Operation Catapult at Mers El Kébir
July 4, 1940: Romania In Crisis
July 5, 1940: The Five Freedoms
July 6, 1940: Hitler's High Point
July 7 1940: Dakar And Ringo
July 8, 1940: Tea Rationing in England
July 9, 1940: Battle of Calabria
July 10, 1940: Battle of Britain Begins
July 11, 1940: "Nous, Philippe Petain"
July 12, 1940: Enter Laval
July 13, 1940: German Surface Raiders Attack!
July 14, 1940: Bastille/Mourning Day
July 15, 1940: Tallest Man Dies
July 16, 1940: Plans for Sea Lion
July 17, 1940: Burma Road Closed
July 18, 1940: FDR Runs Again
July 19, 1940: Last Appeal To Reason
July 20, 1940: First Night Fighter Victory
July 21, 1940: Soviets Absorb Baltic States
July 22, 1940: First RAF Night Fighter Victory
July 23, 1940: Invasion False Alarm
July 24, 1940: The Meknés Incident
July 25, 1940: Black Thursday for RAF
July 26, 1940: Capture The Duke?
July 27, 1940: What's Up, Doc?
July 28, 1940: Destroyers Pulled From Dover
July 29, 1940: Barbarossa On The Burner
July 30, 1940: Hitler Delays Sealion
July 31, 1940: Bloody Wednesday of Olkusz

2020

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

December 13, 1939: Battle of River Platte

Wednesday 13 December 1939

13 December 1939 worldwartwo.filminspector.com Admiral Graf Spee

Battle of the Atlantic: The Battle of the River Platte on 13 December 1939 is the one military event of late 1939 that people remember. It received endless media coverage during a dreary winter of waiting for the larger war to shift into high gear and watching the Soviet Union grind into Finland. In the end, it is a sideshow, but full of valor and death. It is the first of the great "epics" that characterize the German war effort in World War II.

Captain Langsdorff in the Admiral Graf Spee closes on the three British cruisers (Exeter, Achilles, and Ajax) in Force G that are waiting for him just outside the Platte River. This is his second mistake (his first was offering battle at all): the Admiral Graf Spee has the range to stand off and destroy at least one of the British ships with impunity. By moving in, Langsdorff exposes his own ship to damage. The British ships immediately disperse, make smoke, and wait for their prey to get in range.

Langsdorff fires his first shot at 06:18 from 11 miles away. Commodore Harwood in command of Force G splits his forces to put pressure on Langsdorff's ship because its big guns are not agile. By 06:23, the British ships are in range and returning fire, and they begin scoring hits. The pocket battleship's fire is accurate,, too, and early on hits the HMS Achilles (four dead). HMS Exeter is the largest British ship, and Admiral Graf Spee focuses on it, hammering it with 7 11-inch shells that kills 61 crew. By all rights, that should have finished the Exeter, but it is a lucky ship (for now).

Heavy cruiser Exeter is left barely afloat but still firing. By 06:38, only twenty minutes into the battle, one of Exeter's 8-inch shells plunges into the ship and luckily destroys most of Admiral Graf Spee's fuel system. The battle is decided, though the British have by far taken the worst of the fighting: Admiral Graf Spee, now needing repairs but still functional, scurries for sanctuary in Montevideo. The British ships remaining outside the harbor call for reinforcements. British cruiser HMS Cumberland comes up from Port Stanley in the Falklands to replace the battered Exeter.

13 December 1939 worldwartwo.filminspector.com Admiral Graf Spee
Admiral Graf Spee, its guns still hot and raised, enters Montevideo Harbor with colors proudly flying.
In the North Sea, HMS Salmon (Lt. Commander Edward O. Bickford), which narrowly missed sinking the Bremen on the 12th, spots both the cruisers Leipzig and Nürnberg in the Heligoland Bight and pumps a torpedo into each. Both survive and struggle back to port, badly damaged.

U-38 (Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Liebe) torpedoes and sinks 4,101-ton British freighter Deptford. Only five survive, 32 perish.

U-57 (Kapitänleutnant Claus Korth) torpedoes and sinks 1,173-ton Estonian freighter, Mina. All 17 onboard perish.

British freighter William Hallett hits a mine and sinks.

US freighter Exochorda is released from detention at Gibraltar by the British.

Convoy OG 10 forms at Gibraltar.

Winter War: International aid continues to flow to Finland. France ships arms there for the first time. General Wallenius takes command of the Finnish Lapland Group. On the Soviet side, Grigori Shtern replaces Ivan Khabarov as commander of the 8th Army, an indication of how poorly the battle is going for the Soviets north of Leningrad.

Winter War Army Operations: Both sides continue battling over Salla, but the Soviets are tightening their grip on the village and looking for their next step. They are at a crossroads there in more ways than one. At Suomussalmi, the Finns remain in control and have completed surrounded the trapped Soviets in the village.

European Air Operations: The RAF intercepts and damages two Dornier flying boats over the North Sea.

13 December 1939 worldwartwo.filminspector.com Gloster biplane
Briefing pilots of B Flight at Vitry-en-Artrois after flying in from Merville on 13 December 1939, F/L James G "Sandy" Sanders (third left) of No 615 Squadron RAF chased a He 111 up to 23,000ft during a weather patrol 16 days later in Gladiator Mk II KW-T and, losing it in the clouds, was hit by return fire, ending with a crash near Valenciennes. The badly concussed 25-year-old flight leader was later awarded a damaged claim, the only validated score of an obsolete RAF Gloster biplane in France.
Western Front: The same type of patrols without results that have continued along the border continue.

League of Nations: The League adopts a formal resolution condemning the Soviet Union for its invasion of Finland and calls on member nations to assist Finland.

British Government: The House of Commons meets in secret session for the first time since World War I. The debate is about supplies, and one good guess is that it is a hard look at the true impact of the U-boats on Britain's shipping imports.

Romania: King Carol receives a negative reply from the British on whether they will defend his country from the Soviet Union.

US Military: Lt. Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower, a long-time aide to General MacArthur in the Philippines, boards the liner President Cleveland to return to the United States for re-assignment.

China: The Chinese Winter Offensive proceeds on multiple axes:
  • Chinese 1st War Area clears Taihsing Shan and cuts Taotsing rail line
  • 40th Army and 27th Army of Chinese 2nd War Area open offensive against Japanese 36th Infantry Division around Changtze and Tunliu
  • 10th Army Group of Chinese 3rd War Area raids Fuyang, Yuhang, Nanchang, and Hangchow
  • Chinese 5th War Area captures Changnaoyuan, Hsinchenshih, Chuankoutien, Chianghsitien, and Yangliuho
  • Chinese 9th War Area turning back Japanese columns around Wulimiao, Tashihling, and Kueihuashu and also attacking around Fenghsin and Chingan 
  • 27th Army Group of Chinese 9th War Area attacking around Chungyang, Kueihuashu, and Shihchengwan
The Japanese forces are reeling and giving up ground everywhere from this vicious attack, which they appear to have had some advance notice of.

13 December 1939 worldwartwo.filminspector.com Admiral Graf Spee

December 14, 1939: Quisling Meets Hitler
December 15, 1939: Chinese Winter Offensive in High Gear
December 16, 1939: Battle of Summa
December 17, 1939: End of Admiral Graf Spee
December 18, 1939: Battle of Heligoland Bight
December 19, 1939: British Disarm Magnetic Mines
December 20, 1939: Finnish Counterattacks Continue
December 21, 1939: Finns Plan More Counterattacks
December 22, 1939: Enter Chuikov
December 23, 1939: Failed Finnish Counterattack
December 24, 1939: Soviets on the Run
December 25, 1939: Fresh Soviet Attacks
December 26, 1939: Vicious Battles at Kelja
December 27, 1939: Grinding Finnish Victories
December 28, 1939: Liberators
December 29, 1939: Finns Tighten the Noose
December 30, 1939: Finnish Booty
December 31, 1939: Planning More Soviet Destruction

2019