This day in WW II.....

11 April 1944:



The 9th SS Panzer Division sets out in rain and deep mud to relieve 4000 German troops encircled at Ternopol.

To the South the Seventeenth Army pulls back to the “Gneisenau Line”. Hitler insists that Sevastopol will be held “indefinitely”.




“Schoerner reported that the GNEISENAU line and Sevastopol could not be held more than three or four weeks. He had already instructed the Navy to send a convoy from Constanta, Rumania, to take off the service troops.” — Earl Ziemke, STALINGRAD TO BERLIN: THE GERMAN DEFEAT IN THE EAST

 

12 April 1945:




Commando and Royal Blue are presented with the Dickin medal for service during the war. Commando “for successfully delivering messages from Agents in Occupied France on three occasions: twice under exceptionally adverse conditions, while serving with the NPS in 1942.” Royal Blue “for being the first pigeon in this war to deliver a message from a forced landed aircraft on the Continent while serving with the RAF in October, 1940".


Commando

 

13 April 1945:





Fort Drum, a small fortified island in Manila Bay near Corregidor, held out against American forces until April 13, when a team from Company F of the 2nd Battalion, 151st Infantry Regiment, 38th Infantry Division went ashore and pumped 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the fort, then set off incendiary charges. No Japanese soldiers in Fort Drum survived the blast and subsequent fire.

 

14 April 1944:








The desperate struggle at Kohima turns in the allies’ favor.






War Diary, 4th Battalion, Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment

“NIGHT 13/14 APR ALSO SAW BITTER FIGHTING. AT THE FSD THE RAJPUTS WERE FORCED FROM THEIR TRENCHES BY DIRECT HITS FROM THE 75MM GUNS OPPOSITE, SO THAT A COY AT KUKI P. HAD TO SEND ONE PL. FORWARD TO SAVE THE FRONT POSITIONS….THE JAPS MADE A HEAVY RUSH ATTACK AT B COY FROM THE DC BUNGALOW, AND SUCCEEDED IN PENETRATING INTO A SHED ON A SMALL BUT IMPORTANT HILLOCK WHEN A BREN JAMMED.

THE PLN. COMD, LT KING, RESTORED THE SITUATION BY DRIVING THEM OUT WITH GRENADES, BUT NOT BEFORE THE BREN GUNNER HIMSELF PICKED UP A SHOVEL AND CRACKED AT HIS ASSAILANTS WITH IT.

EARLY MORNING BROUGHT A FURTHER ATTACK ON B COY, SUPPORTED BY GRENADE DISCHARGE BOMBS, BUT IT WAS REPULSED WITH MANY CASUALTIES TO THE ENEMY. AIR SUPPLY DROP OF WATER VERY SUCCESSFUL. ENEMY MORTAR ACTIVITY CONTINUED THROUGHOUT THE DAY, INTERSPERSED WITH SMOKE BOMBS WHICH WAS TAKEN TO MEAN THAT HIS STOCK OF CAPTURED AMMUNITION WAS RUNNING LOW. THIS ASSUMPTION WAS CORRECT.” — transcription of Kents’ War Diary above





“April 14th can arguably be called as the turning point of the siege. While the Japanese continued to shell Kohima and Jotsoma garrisons, they did not send any infantry attacks. In the meanwhile 2nd Division reinforced British/Indian positions. After travelling a 1,500 mile distance by land and air, the 2nd Division along with 161st Brigade cleared the Japanese road block on Kohima-Dimapur road. Word of this reached the Kohima garrison on 15th-morale soared. Good news spread like wild fire–the lifting of the siege was inevitable and fast approaching. The Japanese knew they were running out of time as the 2nd Division was approaching.”

 

15 April 1941:




“On Easter Tuesday, 15 April 1941, spectators watching a football match at Windsor Park [Belfast] noticed a lone Luftwaffe Junkers Ju-88 aircraft circling overhead.” — wiki




Bombers—Heinkel He 111s, Junkers Ju 88s and Dorniers—stationed in France and the Netherlands strike Belfast at night. At 10:40 pm the air raid sirens sounded.




“Wave after wave of bombers dropped their incendiaries, high explosives and land-mines. When incendiaries were dropped, the city burned as water pressure was too low for effective firefighting.” — wiki

 

16 April 1940 :





Carton De Wiart, warrior extraordinaire, and his task force land in Namsos to liberate Norway.







“The troops that joined Carton De Wiart in Namsos were an unlikely sight. They had been issued Arctic kits, which included fur-lined boots, heavy woolen sweaters, kapok sleeping bags and coats lined with sheep skin [weighing #15]. The clothes were so heavy and bulky that once the men donned them they could hardly move. To their general’s skeptical eye they looked “like paralyzed polar bears.”” — Joh R. Elting, Battles for Scandinavia

 

17 April 1943:




U-175 is sunk.



"Coast Guardsmen on the deck of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spencer watch the explosion of a depth charge which blasted a Nazi U-boat's hope of breaking into the center of a large convoy.”


U-175

 

18 April 1942:




The Japanese picket boat Nittō Maru sight’s Vice Admiral Halsey’s TF16 and radios an alert back to Japan before being sunk by the USS Nashville.


USS Nashville


The element of surprise lost, Lt Col James Doolittle decides to launch his bomber force of 16 B-25’s early and further from the target than planned.


B-25’s on USS Hornet





“The aircraft began arriving over Japan about noon Tokyo time, six hours after launch, climbed to 1,500 feet (460 m) and bombed 10 military and industrial targets in Tokyo, two in Yokohama, and one each in Yokosuka, Nagoya, Kobe, and Osaka. Although some B-25s encountered light antiaircraft fire and a few enemy fighters over Japan, no bomber was shot down.” — wiki

 

The heroism of those pilots is beyond my understanding.

 

Shangri-La!