Posts Categorized: Today WWII History

80 Years Ago—Sept. 20, 1941: Martlet fighter plane from HMS Audacity in convoy OG-74 shoots down a German Fw 200 bomber, the first kill from an escort carrier.

  80 Years Ago—Sept. 19, 1941: Germans take Kiev in the Ukraine and 600,000 Soviet POWs. 

80 Years Ago—Sept. 18, 1941: USSR conscripts all men ages 16-50. In Prague, Gen. Alois Eliáš, prime minister of Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, who is working with the resistance, poisons three collaborationist journalists; one dies. Off Tripoli, British submarine Upholder sinks Italian transports Oceania and Neptunia (384/6000 Italian troops killed).

80 Years Ago—Sept. 17, 1941: US begins escorting British convoys from Newfoundland to Iceland, violating neutrality: TU 4.1.1 of five destroyers begins escorting Convoy HX-150. Germany begins general deportation of German Jews. At a conference in Copenhagen, German physicist Werner Heisenberg informs Danish physicist Niels Bohr that Germany is working on atomic weapons. During exercises… Read more »

80 Years Ago—Sept. 16, 1941: German army orders that 50-100 communist hostages are to be killed for every German killed by resistance members in occupied nations and orders death sentence for acts of resistance. In Iran, Reza Shah Pahlavi abdicates in favor of his son, Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, who will be inaugurated the next day;… Read more »

80 Years Ago—Sept. 15, 1941: British 1st Parachute Battalion is established, Britain’s first airborne battalion.

  80 Years Ago—Sept. 14, 1941: German Army Group Center encircles two Soviet armies near Kiev. Louisiana Maneuvers begin, with 350,000 men of US Second & Third Armies, with Army Air Force, Navy & Marine Corps air support; runs through Sept. 28.  

  80 Years Ago—Sept. 13, 1941: German army decides Soviet POWs will have smaller rations than other POWs. Gen. Georgy Zhukov replaces Marshal Klement Voroshilov in defense of Leningrad.

80 Years Ago—Sept. 12, 1941: In Mackenzie Bay, Greenland, US Coast Guard cutters Northland and North Star seize Norwegian trawler Buskoe carrying 30 Germans establishing a weather station; the first capture of an Axis ship by the US in WWII, the first true violation of the US Neutrality Acts. Daily bread ration in Nazi-besieged Leningrad… Read more »

80 Years Ago—Sept. 11, 1941: Ground-breaking ceremony for the Pentagon is held in Arlington, VA. In a Fireside Chat radio address, President Roosevelt says US Navy will “shoot on sight” at German or Italian ships in US waters or any attacking US ships or ships under US protection (due to USS Greer incident on Sept…. Read more »