March 5, 1943: first flight of the Gloster Meteor, the Allies’ only operational jet plane during WW2, from RAF Cranwell.

December 17, 1939: Germany’s Admiral Graf Spee is scuttled by her crew outside Montevideo harbor. This famous German commerce raider had been so succesful in the preceding months that the British and the French sent more than 20 ships to track her down. That culminated in the Battle of the River Plate, in which Admiral Graf Spee sustained critical damage. They found refuge in neutral but Allied-friendly Uruguay, but with no hope of getting the ship repaired and the prospect of the crew being interned, Captain Hans Langsdorff made the decision to scuttle her.

January 12, 1945, saw the beginning of the Soviet Vistula-Oder offensive, led by the celebrated marshals Zhukov and Konev. The operation had been prepared for many months during which the Soviet amassed a force of such magnitude that Hitler refused to believe the incoming reports.

World War 2 was pretty much hopeless for the Germans at this time, but decisions made on either side would have a lasting impact on post-war Europe. Hitler had mostly lost his sense of reality and failed to order the trapped German forces in the Courland pocket home, where they could have helped defending; he even sent troops out to Hungary. Zhukov on the other hand, stopped the offensive at the Oder, just a bit over 40 miles from Berlin – but the Soviet front line had become dangerously extended, and he considered pushing on too dangerous.

They each had their detractors: Guderian fell out with Hitler about the failing defense and Chuikov with Zhukov about the stalled offensive. Plenty of room for alternative history writing: would the Soviets have been stopped before they reached the Oder if Guderian’s advice had been followed? Would they have taken Berlin if Chuikov had had his way?
The offensive was halted on February 2. Two days later, the Yalta conference started and all the decisions that would draw the map for decades to come were made.

I herewith confirm my continued existence.

‘Panther’ seems a logical successor to the preceding ‘Leopard’, but as far as animals are concerned, ‘panther’ isn’t a separate species - it’s a term often used for black leopards. And the official Latin names of all the big cats start with Panthera, including Panthera tigris. So from that perspective, a Tiger is a Panther.

August 21, 1942: German soldiers on Mount Elbrus, Europe’s tallest mountain. This was about as far as the German army would reach in the Caucasus. And the feat itself didn’t work wonders in German propaganda: Hitler was livid when he heard about it and thought it was a complete waste of time.

See https://europebetweeneastandwest.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/hubris-arrogance-on-europes-everest-mt-elbrus-a-metaphor-of-german-defeat-in-the-east/ for a recounting of this story.

August 29, 1944: American troops of the 28th Infantry Division march down the Champs Elysees, Paris, in the ‘Victory’ Parade.

From https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/index.html?dod-date=825

@captainwalker said in On this day during W.W. 2:

(…) the airborne invasion of Holland (Operation Market Garden) (…)

Thanks for sharing this. However, Operation Market Garden didn’t happen in Holland, but in the eastern part of the Netherlands. Holland is in the west.

It’s a pet peeve of mine: ‘Holland’ is frequently, but inaccurately, used as a synonym for ‘the Netherlands’. Unfortunately, this happens so often that many people have come to believe that the two are actually the same. Even the Dutch government only recently stepped away from this habit.

Not precisely a day “during W.W. 2”, but nevertheless very relevant to it, was February 15, 1933. On that day, Giuseppe Zangara tried to assassinate president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, a mere two weeks before his inauguration. Zangara was a desperate man of doubtful psychological stability and blamed his difficulties on the rich and the powerful. He was also quite short and not in the front row, so he had difficult taking his aim with taller people standing in front of him, climbed an unstable chair, and missed Roosevelt. Mrs. Lillian Cross, standing in front of him, turned around to bravely grab the arm holding the gun, but while others rushed to overpower Zangara, he did fire four more bullets. Several people were wounded, among them Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago, who would die of his injuries a few weeks later. Zangara was initially convicted to 80 years in prison, but faced execution for murder a month later after Cermak had died.

Needless to say that history would have been dramatically different if Zangara had succeeded. That scenario has been the topic of speculation and fiction, most notably as the point of divergence in the well-known novel The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick.

I’m trying to renew my usual Bronze membership, but I’m getting an error message (AMOUNT_ERROR).

@djensen Thanks, it worked. Bronze purchased.

It still doesn’t work. I’m getting this when selecting ‘Bronze Patron’ and pressing ‘Buy now’:

I don’t get an error when selecting Gold or Silver, but I’m hardly an active member of this site so I think Bronze should suffice.

April 5, 1945, saw the beginning of a fierce battle in an unexpected location: the Georgian uprising against the Germans on the Dutch island of Texel. Now how did the Georgians get there, and why did they rebel?

The “Georgian Legion” in the German Army consisted of volunteers of Georgian origin, including many who had first fought in the Red Army and had been captured. They hoped that the German advance towards the Caucasus would eventually reach Georgia so that they could assist in liberating their homeland from the Soviets, but by 1945 that hope was of course long gone. The Germans didn’t quite trust them but welcomed the manpower, and as it happened to be, had assigned about 800 of them man a part of the Atlantikwall on the island of Texel.

The Georgians were not in an enviable position at all. Germany was rapidly losing the war, and even when they were far away from the fighting in the east, the possibility of ending up in Soviet hands and being executed as traitors, seemed far from remote. So when they were summoned to fight the advancing Canadians in the east of the Netherlands, they rose in rebellion against their German overlords, hoping to capture the entire island of Texel and hold out until those very Canadians would arrive, thus being able to claim being on the Allied side. It was a desperate plan, but it was all they had.

It ended very badly. They failed to capture the whole island, the Germans sent reinforcements, almost all Georgians were killed, and probably even more Germans, and also a substantial number of Dutch civilians. Curiously, the fighting went on even after the overall German capitulation, ending only on June 20.

Some good information can be found here: https://www.landmarkscout.com/the-last-battle-of-ww2-in-europe-the-georgian-uprising-on-texel-the-netherlands/ even when the claim that this was the last WW2 battle in Europe is somewhat inaccurate.

I’m trying to renew my usual Bronze membership, but I’m getting an error message (AMOUNT_ERROR).

October 10, 1945, saw the official abolishment of the Nazi Party. The Allied Control Council issued their Law #2 to formally end the existence of the NSDAP and 60 related Nazi organizations.

The full text of this law and other proceedings is available in this rather large scanned document.

Law #1, issued September 20, concerned the repeal of Nazi laws.

It’s a strange thought that Nazi law and Nazi organizations formally continued to exist for months after the war had ended, even if clearly inoperative.

Market Garden commemoration day here, with 99-year old veteran Geoff Roberts.

https://www.nu.nl/311418/video/99-jarige-veteraan-krijgt-luid-applaus-bij-kranslegging-in-arnhem.html

It’s in Dutch, but the video says it all.

The US ‘Ghost Army’ was a unit specialized in deception: by building and operating mockups, they gave the Germans the impression of being a large army, drawing the enemy’s attention away from actual operations. They famously participated in Operation Fortitude in 1944, aimed at leading the Germans to believe that the allied invasion would occur somewhere else than it actually did. Later, they transferred to mainland Europe and continued to mislead the enemy.

Surviving veterans have now finally received their well-earned decorations.

@barnee said in On this day during W.W. 2:

Rich and powerful is who he blames. A communist maybe ? Roosevelt was a socialist, so whatever.

I take it that you’re not a big fan of either communism or socialism. But they’re not the same, and Roosevelt was neither. As for Zangara? Just another guy who blamed his own misfortunes on others. Ironically, as a bricklayer he would probably have had excellent opportunities in the late 1930s had he chosen a better path in life.

Not precisely a day “during W.W. 2”, but nevertheless very relevant to it, was February 15, 1933. On that day, Giuseppe Zangara tried to assassinate president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, a mere two weeks before his inauguration. Zangara was a desperate man of doubtful psychological stability and blamed his difficulties on the rich and the powerful. He was also quite short and not in the front row, so he had difficult taking his aim with taller people standing in front of him, climbed an unstable chair, and missed Roosevelt. Mrs. Lillian Cross, standing in front of him, turned around to bravely grab the arm holding the gun, but while others rushed to overpower Zangara, he did fire four more bullets. Several people were wounded, among them Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago, who would die of his injuries a few weeks later. Zangara was initially convicted to 80 years in prison, but faced execution for murder a month later after Cermak had died.

Needless to say that history would have been dramatically different if Zangara had succeeded. That scenario has been the topic of speculation and fiction, most notably as the point of divergence in the well-known novel The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick.

Apollo Creed in the Rocky movies.

I was really sorry to learn that he passed away, he came across as a sympathetic guy.