September 4, 1940 The USS Greer is fired upon On this day in 1940, the American destroyer Greer becomes the first U.S. vessel fired on in the war when a German sub aims a few torpedoes at it, sparking heightened tensions between Germany and the United States. It was a case of mistaken identity. As the Greer made its way through the North Atlantic, a British patrol bomber spotted a German sub, the U-652. The British bomber alerted the Greer, which responded by tracking the sub. As the American destroyer approached Iceland, the area in which the sub had been spotted, a British aircraft dropped a depth charge into the water, rocking the sub. The U-652, believing the Greer responsible for the charge, fired its torpedoes. They missed. The Greer made it safely to Iceland. Although the United States was still officially a neutral country, Roosevelt unofficially declared war on anyone who further attacked American vessels in the North Atlantic: "If German or Italian vessels of war enter these waters, they do so at their own peril."
3/4 September 1939. (First Bomber Command losses WW2) 58 Squadron. Whitley III K8969. Op. Nickel. 9 Squadron. Wellington I L4268. Op. Brunsbuttel. 9 Squadron Wellington I L4275 Op. Brunsbuttel. 107 Squadron. Blenheim IV N6184. Op. Wilhelmshaven. 107 Squadron. Blenheim IV N6188. Op. Wilhelmshaven. 107 Squadron. Blenheim IV N6189. Op. Wilhelmshaven. 107 Squadron. Blenheim IV N6240. Op. Wilhelmshaven. 4 September 1939. 110 Squadron. Blenheim IV N6199 Op. Wilhelmshaven.
September 5, 1943 U.S. forces seize more of New Guinea On this day in 1943, Gen. Douglas MacArthur's 503rd Parachute Regiment land and occupy Nazdab, just east of Lae, a port city in northeastern Papua New Guinea, situating them perfectly for future operations on the islands. New Guinea had been occupied by the Japanese since March 1942. Raids by Allied forces early on were met with tremendous ferocity, and they were often beaten back by the Japanese occupiers. Much of the Allied response was led by forces from Australia, as they were most threatened by the presence of the Japanese in that sphere. The tide began to turn in December 1942, as the Australians recaptured Buna-but despite numerical superiority, the Japanese continued to hang on, fighting to keep every square mile they had captured. Many Japanese committed suicide, swimming out to sea, rather than be taken prisoner. In January 1943, the Americans joined the Aussies in assaults on Sanananda, which resulted in huge losses for the Japanese--7,000 killed--and the first land defeat of the war. As Japanese reinforcements raced for the next Allied targets, Lae and Salamauam, in March, 137 American bombers destroyed the Japanese transport vessels, drowning 3,500 Japanese, as well as their much-needed fuel and spare parts. On September 8, almost 2,000 American and Australian Airborne Division parachutists landed and seized Nazdab, which held a valuable airfield. The Allies quickly established a functioning airstrip and prepared to take the port city of Lae, one more step in MacArthur's strategy to recapture New Guinea and the Solomons-and eventually go back for the Philippines.
September 6, 1944 Italian resistance fighters persevere On this day in 1944, British intelligence receives word that, despite setbacks, Italian guerillas fighting the German occupiers of their country are continuing to widen their activity. Since the Italian surrender in the summer of 1943, German troops had occupied wider swaths of the peninsula to prevent the Allies from using Italy as a base of operations against German strongholds elsewhere, such as the Balkans. Allied occupation of Italy would also put into their hands Italian airbases, further threatening German air power. As the Allies battled the Germans, pushing them farther and farther north, Italian partisans (antifascist guerilla fighters) aided them. The Italian Resistance had been fighting underground against the fascist government of Mussolini long before its surrender. Now it fought against German fascism-and the Italian monarchy. Italian liberation for the partisans meant a democratic republic-not a return to a country ruled, often ineptly, by a king. The partisans had proved extremely effective in aiding the Allies; by the summer of 1944, resistance fighters had immobilized eight of the 26 German divisions in northern Italy. German reaction to resistance activity was brutal; in one incident, German soldiers killed 382 Italian men, women, and children as revenge for a partisan attack that killed 35 German soldiers. German "sweeps" of partisan activity did much damage, but failed to stop the guerillas. On September 6, the Japanese ambassador to Italy reported back to Tokyo that partisan activity, especially around Turin and the Franco-Italian border, had widened, despite German purges. This information was intercepted by British intelligence and decoded, reassuring the British forces fighting within Italy that they were not alone in fighting the Germans. By war's end, Italian guerillas controlled Venice, Milan, and Genoa, but at considerable cost. All told, the resistance lost some 50,000 fighters--but won its republic.
6 Sep 1939 - South Africa declares war on Germany. Also on this day is the Battle of Barking Creek, when a error in identification in the Chain Home Radar system led to RAF aircraft engaging each other over the Thames Estuary. Blenheims, Hurricanes and Spitfires, not physically unlike the German Ju 88 and Bf 109, reported seeing enemy aircraft and several claims were made.
6 September 1939. First Fighter Command losses WW2. 56 Squadron Hurricane I L1985 P/O. M L. Hulton-Harrop + Accidentally attacked and shot down by 74 Squadron Spitfires near Ipswich. 56 Squadron. Hurricane I L1980 P/O. F C. Rose. Safe. (F/O. F C. Rose was killed in action on 18 May 1940) As above. The aircraft was repaired and was lost when HMS Glorious was sunk on 8 June 1940.
September 7, 1940 The Blitz begins On this day in 1940, 300 German bombers raid London, in the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. This bombing "blitzkrieg" (lightning war) would continue until May 1941. After the successful occupation of France, it was only a matter of time before the Germans turned their sights across the Channel to England. Hitler wanted a submissive, neutralized Britain so that he could concentrate on his plans for the East, namely the land invasion of the Soviet Union, without interference. Since June, English vessels in the Channel had been attacked and aerial battles had been fought over Britain, as Germany attempted to wear down the Royal Air Force in anticipation of a land invasion. But with Germany failing to cripple Britain's air power, especially in the Battle of Britain, Hitler changed strategies. A land invasion was now ruled out as unrealistic; instead Hitler chose sheer terror as his weapon of choice. British intelligence had had an inkling of the coming bombardment. Evidence of the large-scale movement of German barges in the Channel and the interrogation of German spies had led them to the correct conclusion-unfortunately, it was just as the London docks were suffering the onslaught of Day One of the Blitz. By the end of the day, German planes had dropped 337 tons of bombs on London. Even though civilian populations were not the primary target that day, the poorest of London slum areas-the East End--felt the fallout literally, from direct hits of errant bombs as well as the fires that broke out and spread throughout the vicinity. Four hundred and forty-eight civilians were killed that afternoon and evening. A little past 8 p.m., British military units were alerted with the code name "Cromwell," meaning the German invasion had begun. A state of emergency broke out in England; even home defense units were put to the ready. One of Hitler's key strategic blunders of the war was to consistently underestimate the will and courage of the British people. They would not run or be cowed into submission. They would fight.
SHINYO MARU (September 7, 1944) Japanese 2,634-ton transport carrying hundreds of American and Filipino prisoners of war captured at an airstrip near Lasang, were being transported from the island of Mindano to Manila when attacked by an American submarine, the USS Paddle commanded by Lt. Cdr. Byron Nowell. A torpedo hit the Shinyo Maru blowing her apart, the bow section sinking with hundreds of men trapped inside. But many survived the sinking, some making their way to Sindangan Bay in Mindano. There, they contacted Filipino guerrillas who radioed for help. The US submarine USS Norwhal was contacted, and being in the area of the sinking, proceeded at full speed to search for any survivors. As luck would have it, 81 persons were plucked from the water. A total of 667 American and Filipino POW's were killed in the explosion or drowned when the ship went down. Some were shot by the Japanese while attempting to swim to shore.
September 8, 1943 Italian surrender is announced On this day in 1943, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies. Germany reacted with Operation Axis, the Allies with Operation Avalanche. With Mussolini deposed from power and the earlier collapse of the fascist government in July, Gen. Pietro Badoglio, the man who had assumed power in Mussolini's stead by request of King Victor Emanuel, began negotiating with Gen. Eisenhower for weeks. Weeks later, Badoglio finally approved a conditional surrender, allowing the Allies to land in southern Italy and begin beating the Germans back up the peninsula. Operation Avalanche, the Allied invasion of Italy, was given the go-ahead, and the next day would see Allied troops land in Salerno. The Germans too snapped into action. Ever since Mussolini had begun to falter, Hitler had been making plans to invade Italy to keep the Allies from gaining a foothold that would situate them within easy reach of the German-occupied Balkans. On September 8, Hitler launched Operation Axis, the occupation of Italy. As German troops entered Rome, General Badoglio and the royal family fled Rome for southeastern Italy to set up a new antifascist government. Italian troops began surrendering to their former German allies; where they resisted, as had happened earlier in Greece, they were slaughtered (1,646 Italian soldiers were murdered by Germans on the Greek island of Cephalonia, and the 5,000 that finally surrendered were ultimately shot). One of the goals of Operation Axis was to keep Italian navy vessels out of the hands of the Allies. When the Italian battleship Roma headed for an Allied-controlled port in North Africa, it was sunk by German bombers. In fact, the Roma had the dubious honor of becoming the first ship ever sunk by a radio-controlled guided missile. More than 1,500 crewmen drowned. The Germans also scrambled to move Allied POWs to labor camps in Germany in order to prevent their escape. In fact, many POWS did manage to escape before the German invasion, and several hundred volunteered to stay in Italy to fight alongside the Italian guerillas in the north. The Italians may have surrendered, but their war was far from over.
September 9, 1943 Allies land at Salerno and Taranto On this day in 1943, Operation Avalanche, the Allied land invasion of Salerno, and Operation Slapstick, the British airborne invasion of Taranto, both in southern Italy, are launched. The U.S. 5th Army under Lt. Gen. Mark Clark landed along the Salerno coastline while British Commando units and their American counterparts, the U.S. Rangers, landed on the peninsula itself. Salerno had been chosen as the first site for invasion of the peninsula because it was the northern-most point to which the Allies could fly planes from its bases in Sicily, which they had already invaded and occupied. Rockets launched from landing craft provided cover, and the beach landings went relatively smoothly. It wasn't until two days later that the Germans, with some Italian troops coerced into service, mounted a heavy counterattack on the beachhead. But Clark called in the 82nd Airborne for support, and by the 15th, Salerno was in Allied hands. Meanwhile, the British 1st Airborne Division, having successfully landed at Taranto, captured the airfield at Foggia.
R.N. ROMA (September 9, 1943) Italian battleship, flagship of Admiral Carlo Bertgamini, sunk in the Mediterranean (off the coast of Sardinia) by direct hits from two radio-guided 'Fritz-X' 320 kg bombs dropped from Dornier 217 K11s Luftwaffe planes from the Istres airstrip near Marseille. (A total of 1,386 such bombs were manufactured during the war. This radio-controlled bomb was the first really effective weapon against the battleship, other than the torpedo). The Roma capsized, broke in two and sank at 16.12hrs. The Italian surrender had just been signed and now their foe was their former ally, Germany. The Roma (41,650 tons) had set sail for Malta from her base at La Spezia with orders to join the British fleet. On seeing the planes approach, the gun-crews mistook them for British aircraft coming in to act as escorts and held their fire. Of the ships crew of 1,849, Admiral Bertgamini, 86 officers and 1,264 crewmen perished as the ship went down. The pitifully few survivors were picked up by two of the escort destroyers. In the Mediterranean theatre alone, a total of 28,937 Italian sailors lost their lives. During World War 11 eight battleships were sunk by aircraft; these were the Roma, Prince of Wales, Repulse, Arizona, Oklahoma and the Japanese Hiei, Musushi, and Yamato.
September 10, 1940 British War Cabinet reacts to the Blitz in kind On this day in 1940, in light of the destruction and terror inflicted on Londoners by a succession of German bombing raids, called "the Blitz," the British War Cabinet instructs British bombers over Germany to drop their bombs "anywhere" if unable to reach their targets. The prior two nights of bombing had wrought extraordinary damage, especially in the London slum area, the East End. King George VI even visited the devastated area to reassure the inhabitants that their fellow countrymen were with them in heart and mind. Each night since the seventh, sirens had sounded to announce the approach of incoming German planes, which had begun dropping bombs indiscriminately in the London vicinity, even though the docks had been their primary target on Day One of the Blitz. As British bombers set out for Germany to retaliate, they were instructed not to return home with their bombs if they failed to locate their original targets. Instead, they were to release their loads where and when they could. On the night of the 10th, a night when British Home Intelligence had been alerted of how panicked Londoners were becoming at the sound of those air-raid sirens, Berlin was paid in kind, with a cascade of British bombs-one of which even landed in the garden of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party's minister of propaganda.
10 Sep 1939 - The British Expeditionary Force (BEF), consisting of some 158,000 men, leaves for France. Canada joins the list of Commonwealth countries to declare war against Germany.
September 11, 1940 Hitler focuses East, sends troops to Romania On this day in 1940, Adolf Hitler sends German army and air force reinforcements to Romania to protect precious oil reserves and to prepare an Eastern European base of operations for further assaults against the Soviet Union. As early as 1937, Romania had come under control of a fascist government that bore great resemblance to that of Germany's, including similar anti-Jewish laws. Romania's king, Carol II, dissolved the government a year later because of a failing economy and installed Romania's Orthodox Patriarch as prime minister. But the Patriarch's death and peasant uprising provoked renewed agitation by the fascist Iron Guard paramilitary organization, which sought to impose order. In June 1940, the Soviet Union co-opted two Romanian provinces, and the king searched for an ally to help protect it and appease the far right within its own borders. So on July 5, 1940, Romania allied itself with Nazi Germany-only to be invaded by its "ally" as part of Hitler's strategy to create one huge eastern front against the Soviet Union. King Carol abdicated on September 6, 1940, leaving the country in the control of the fascist Prime Minister Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard. While Romania would recapture the territory lost to the Soviet Union when the Germans invaded Russia, it would also have to endure the Germans' raping its resources as part of the Nazi war effort. Besides taking control of Romania's oil wells and oil installations, Hitler would help himself to Romania's food crops-causing a food shortage for native Romanians.
USS ROWAN (September 11, 1943) While screening empty transport ships returning to Oran after the Allied invasion of Italy at Salerno, the convoy was attacked by German E-boats just hours after leaving Salerno harbour. The wake of a torpedo was seen streaking towards the Rowan, fortunately it missed, but a second tin-fish hit the ship on her port quarter. This caused her 5 inch magazine to explode with an ear shattering roar. The once proud Rowan took only 40 seconds to sink, killing 202 of her crew of 273. There were only 75 survivors, picked up by the American destroyer USS Bristol. The Bristol was torpedoed a month later on October 13, by the U-371 and sank off Cape Bougaroun, Algeria, with the loss of 52 of her crew.
September 1940 - Air reconnaissance show a build-up of Italian forces in Libya preparing to attack Egypt. Blenheims of No. 202 Group attack enemy airfields and enemy shipping in Tobruk harbour. The Italian Eastward advance halted about 15 miles past Sidi Barrani, having over-run the village and the DLG's to the East.
September 12, 1942 The Laconia is sunk On this day in 1942, a German U-boat sinks a British troop ship, the Laconia, killing more than 1,400 men. The commander of the German sub, Capt. Werner Hartenstein, realizing that Italians POWs were among the passengers, strove to aid in their rescue. The Laconia, a former Cunard White Star ship put to use to transport troops, including prisoners of war, was in the South Atlantic bound for England when it encountered U-156, a German sub. The sub attacked, sinking the troop ship and imperiling the lives of more than 2,200 passengers. But as Hartenstein, the sub commander, was to learn from survivors he began taking onboard, among those passengers were 1,500 Italians POWs. Realizing that he had just endangered the lives of so many of his fellow Axis members, he put out a call to an Italian submarine and two other German U-boats in the area to help rescue the survivors. In the meantime, one French and two British warships sped to the scene to aid in the rescue. The German subs immediately informed the Allied ships that they had surfaced for humanitarian reasons. The Allies assumed it was a trap. Suddenly, an American B-24 bomber, the Liberator, flying from its South Atlantic base on Ascension Island, saw the German sub and bombed it-despite the fact that Hartenstein had draped a Red Cross flag prominently on the hull of the surfaced sub. The U-156, damaged by the air attack, immediately submerged. Admiral Karl Donitz, supreme commander of the German U-boat forces, had been monitoring the rescue efforts. He ordered that "all attempts to rescue the crews of sunken ships...cease forthwith." Consequently, more than 1,400 of the Laconia's passengers, which included Polish guards and British crewmen, drowned.
RAKUYO MARU and KACHIDOKI MARU (September 12\13, 1944) On September 4th, 2,218 Australian and British prisoners of war, who had survived the building of the Death Railway, were marched the three miles from the Valley Road camp in Singapore to the docks to board the two twenty-three year old passenger/cargo ships Rakuyo Maru (9,500 tons) and the Kachidoki Maru (10,500 tons). The Kachidoki Maru was the ex US ship President Harrison which had ran aground at Sha Wai Shan in China and was captured and salvaged by the Japanese. Both vessels were bound for Formosa. In the South China Sea, the twelve ship convoy, including three transports, two tankers and four escorting destroyers, was attacked by three American submarines, the Growler, Sealion and the Pampanito. The Rakuyo and Kachidoki were both sunk by torpedoes 300 miles west of Cape Bojeador, Luzon. A total of 1,144 British and Australian POW's lost their lives. Among those lost were thirty-three men from HMAS Perth. All told there were 1,074 survivors, 141 were picked up by the three submarines. The USS Queenfish and USS Barb arrived later and in heavy seas rescued another thirty-two before heading for Saipan. The Japanese destroyers rescued 520 British prisoners from the Kachidoki (488 POW's and crew had died) and 277 British and Australians from the Rakuyo, to again become Prisoners of War
September 13, 1940 Italy invades Egypt On this day in 1940, Mussolini's forces finally cross the Libyan border into Egypt, achieving what the Duce calls the "glory" Italy had sought for three centuries. Italy had occupied Libya since 1912, a purely economic "expansion." In 1935, Mussolini began sending tens of thousands of Italians to Libya, mostly farmers and other rural workers, in part to relieve overpopulation concerns. So by the time of the outbreak of the Second World War, Italy had enjoyed a long-term presence in North Africa, and Mussolini began dreaming of expanding that presence-always with an eye toward the same territories the old "Roman Empire" had counted among its conquests. Chief among these was Egypt. But sitting in Egypt were British troops, which, under a 1936 treaty, were garrisoned there to protect the Suez Canal and Royal Navy bases at Alexandria and Port Said. Hitler had offered to aid Mussolini in his invasion, to send German troops to help fend off a British counterattack. But Mussolini had been rebuffed when he had offered Italian assistance during the Battle of Britain, so he now insisted that as a matter of national pride, Italy would have to create a Mediterranean sphere of influence on its own-or risk becoming a "junior" partner of Germany's. As the Blitz commenced, and the land invasion of Britain by Germany was "imminent" (or so the Duce thought), Mussolini believed the British troops in Egypt were particularly vulnerable, and so announced to his generals his plans to make his move into Egypt. Gen. Rodolfo Graziani, the brutal governor of Ethiopia, another Italian colony, disagreed, believing that Italy's Libya forces were not strong enough to wage an offensive across the desert. Graziani also reminded Mussolini that Italian claims of air superiority in the Mediterranean were nothing more than propaganda. But Mussolini, a true dictator, ignored these protestations and ordered Graziani into Egypt-a decision that would disprove the adage that war is too important to leave to the generals.
