366 Days
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December
News Headlines
1
STALAG IX B OPENS, BECOMES INFAMOUS GERMAN POW CAMP
Near Bad Orb, Hessen • December 1, 1939 On this date in 1939, four months since the outbreak of war in Europe, the German Wehrmacht (military) established a prisoner of war camp, Mannschafts-Stammlager IX B, outside Bad Orb, roughly 30 miles northeast of Frankfurt am Main. Over the course of the war Stalag IX B—Stalag being a contraction […]
2
U.S. ATOMIC BOMB PROJECT TAKES OFF
Chicago, Illinois • December 2, 1942 In November 1942 the world’s first artificial nuclear reactor was assembled piecemeal below the bleachers of an unused and unheated double racquetball (squash) court at the University of Chicago’s Amos Alonzo Stagg Field. The impetus for building an American nuclear reactor, which consisted (mostly) of a huge pile of […]
3
THIRD B-29 RAID ON JAPANESE CAPITAL TOKYO
Tinian, Mariana Islands • December 3, 1944 On this date in 1944 eighty-six four-engine B-29 Superfortresses belonging to XXI Bomber Command, a unit of the U.S. Twentieth Air Force, left the northwestern Pacific Mariana Islands base on Tinian on their third Tokyo bombing mission. Ten days earlier 111 of these heavy bombers had launched the first raid […]
4
PRESS LEAKS ROOSEVELT’S “VICTORY PLAN” OVER AXIS
Chicago, Illinois • December 4, 1941 Early in July 1941, four months after the U.S. Congress had enacted the Lend-Lease Program that began assisting Great Britain and China in their defense against the aggressor states of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested his Secretaries of War and the Navy […]
5
HIROHITO’S UNCLE, PRINCE ASAKA, TO COMMAND CHINA TROOPS
Tokyo, Japan • December 5, 1937 On this date in 1937 Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, a lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army and uncle by marriage to Japanese Emperor Hirohito (posthumously referred to as Emperor Shōwa), flew from Tokyo to his new assignment—temporary command of the Japanese Shanghai Expeditionary Force, a unit of Gen. Iwane […]
6
SOVIET ARMY AND WINTER LIFT GERMAN SIEGE OF MOSCOW
Moscow, Soviet Union • December 6, 1941 Three weeks after launching Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941 with the express goal of “crush[ing] Soviet Russia in a quick campaign” (Fuehrer Directive 21, December 18, 1940), the Germans and their Axis partners had indeed reached close enough to Moscow to fly sorties and bomb the Soviet capital. Tactically, […]
7
JAPAN’S NAVY SAVAGES U.S. PACIFIC FLEET
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii • December 7, 1941 On this date in 1941, a quiet Sunday morning on the Hawaiian island of Oahu just before 8 o’clock, Japan staged a devious, vicious, unprovoked air and naval attack on America’s doorstep, the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor and its defending Army Air Corps and Marine airfields that dotted […]
8
U.S. CAPITALISM UNDERPINS “ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY”
Washington, D.C. • December 8, 1941 “His genius was problem-solving,” it was said of Andrew Jackson Higgins (1886–1952). “Higgins applied it to everything in life: politics, dealing with [trade] unions, acquiring workers, producing fantastical things or huge amounts of things.” Among the “fantastical things” he produced in quantity were the very amphibious landing boats linked […]
9
JAPAN: WAR ONLY IF U.S. ACTS AS AGGRESSOR
Tokyo, Japan • December 9, 1940 On September 27, 1940, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, or Axis Pact as it was also known. The Pact was an outgrowth of the “Rome-Berlin Axis” celebrated by the Italo-German “Pact of Steel,” which Adolf Hitler’s foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Benito […]
10
JAPANESE PUT MANILA IN CROSSHAIRS
Manila, Philippines • December 10, 1941 At 3:40 a.m. on December 8, 1941 (Manila time), one hour and 40 minutes after the start of Japan’s unprovoked air and naval attack on U.S. military installations at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 62‑year-old Lt. Gen. Douglas MacArthur awoke to a terrible day of his own. Within three hours MacArthur learned […]
11
U.S. WAKE ISLAND DEFENDERS REBUFF INITIAL JAPANESE INVASION
Wake Island, Central Pacific Ocean • December 11, 1941 As war clouds gathered over the Western and Central Pacific in the late 1930s/early 1940s, U.S. military brass identified a V‑shaped set of coral islets, since 1899 an American outpost between Hawaii and Guam, a “priority defense requirement.” Actually a submerged volcano top, Wake Island (see […]
12
DEADLY JAPANESE ATTACK ON USS PANAY
Shanghai, China • December 12, 1937 In 1937 the Chinese city of Shanghai, a city of 3 million people, dominated the country economically. Located on one of the many tributaries of the Yangtze River, Shanghai was a “treaty port” (i.e., open to foreign traders) on the East China Sea. Then as now the Yangtze River […]
13
HITLER’S OPERATION MARITA DIRECTIVE TARGETS GREECE
Berlin, Germany • December 13, 1940 Italy had long had an interest in the neighboring Balkans, which lay to the country’s east across the Adriatic Sea. In June 1917 Italian soldiers briefly seized portions of central and southern Albania, declaring them a protectorate. Italian Fascism, which was rooted in Italian nationalism, urged Italians to reestablish […]
14
NORWAY’S VIDKUN QUISLING MEETS HITLER
Berlin, Germany • December 14, 1939 On this date in 1939 Adolf Hitler and high-ranking members of the German Navy and Army met with Norway’s right-wing politician Vidkun Quisling, whose private visit to Berlin had been sponsored by Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi Party’s chief racial theorist. From 1931 to 1933 Quisling had served as Norway’s […]
15
MINDORO’S CAPTURE, THEN ON TO CAPITAL MANILA
Mindoro Island, Philippines • December 15, 1944 On October 17, 1944, the naval, air, and land forces of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area, began their assault on the Japanese-held Philippine island of Leyte. Three days later MacArthur and his staff, accompanied by Philippine president Sergio Osmeña, waded onto Palo Beach (Red Beach), […]
16
NAZIS FORCE BULGE IN ALLIED LINES
Adlerhorst Forward HQ, Central Hessen, Germany • December 16, 1944 “It is essential to deprive the enemy of his belief that victory is certain,” Adolf Hitler told his generals on December 12, 1944, at his rural Adlerhorst (Eagle’s Nest) headquarters near Bad Nauheim, Germany, the camouflaged western command outpost Architect of the Reich Albert Speer had built […]
17
FIERCE FIGHTING AT SAN PIETRO AS U.S. FIFTH ARMY ADVANCES NORTH
San Pietro Infine, Southern Italy • December 17, 1943 On this date in 1943 what little remained of the ancient Italian farming community of San Pietro Infine, population 1,400, fell to the U.S. 36th (“Texas”) Infantry Division of Lt. Gen. Mark Clark’s U.S. Fifth Army—this after the collapse of the Bernhardt Line (or Reinhard Line), an […]
18
HITLER PLOTS SOVIETS’ RUIN WITH OPERATION BARBAROSSA
Berlin, Germany • December 18, 1940 On this date in 1940 in Berlin, one day before receiving the credentials of the new Soviet ambassador to Germany, Adolf Hitler signed Fuehrer Directive 21, Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa), thereby initiating the secret preparations and military operations that led to the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, […]
19
BRITAIN, FRANCE TO DISRUPT NAZI IRON ORE IMPORTS
London, England • December 19, 1939 On the afternoon of August 23, 1939, Adolf Hitler’s foreign secretary Joachim von Ribbentrop appeared in Moscow’s Kremlin fortress to sign off on the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. The 10‑year pact, also known by the twin surnames of Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Ribbentrop, was the necessary […]
20
ROOSEVELT: U.S. DEFENSE PLAN EMPHASIZES AIDING ALLIES
Washington, D.C. • December 20, 1940 On this date in 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed William Knudsen to head a four-member board (Office of Production Management, or OPM) to plan for national defense and coordinate aid to Great Britain following Germany’s total blockade of that island nation in mid-August (Battle of the Atlantic). A […]
21
ROMANIAN FASCISTS IN CONTEST TO HEAD GOVERNMENT
Bucharest, Romania • December 21, 1937 On this date in 1937 Romania’s last free elections (until 1990) ended in the ouster of the middle-of-the road National Liberal government. The Liberals, who remained the largest party in parliament, were unable to form a coalition government with the next two runner-up parties. A week later King Carol II […]
22
HONG KONG’S DEFENSES NEAR COLLAPSE
British Crown Colony of Hong Kong • December 22, 1941 The British Crown Colony of Hong Kong consisted of Hong Kong Island (since 1842) and the Kowloon peninsula (since 1860) opposite the island. The New Territories across Kowloon Bay on the South China mainland was leased for 99 years. (See map below.) Together with several hundred […]
23
C-47 SKYTRAIN TRANSPORT MAKES MAIDEN FLIGHT
Long Beach, California • December 23, 1941 Of all the workhorse aircraft in World War II, none was more widely and effectively deployed than the Douglas C‑47 military transport. Nicknamed the “Gooney Bird” by American crewmen and passengers, the C‑47 Skytrain was a derivative of the Douglas propeller-driven commercial airliner, the DC‑3. (The British and Australians […]
24
JAPANESE MAKE THIRD ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE CHANGSHA
Changsha, Hunan Province, China • December 24, 1941 In the years since the political upheaval that brought Emperor Meiji to power (1868–1912), the Japanese began looking to the Asian mainland as a wellspring of new mineral, agricultural, and human resources to exploit for their use, benefit, and advantage. In the mid-1890s and 1905–1910 Japan brought the […]
25
GERMANS UNABLE TO BREAK BASTOGNE ROADBLOCK
101st Airborne Command Post, Bastogne, Belgium • December 25, 1944 On Christmas Eve 1944 in the German-besieged Eastern Belgian town of Bastogne (population 3,500), soldiers of the armorless U.S. 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles” Division, the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions, and several combat engineer and field artillery battalions received rations of brandy and listened to the […]
26
BRITISH TRAP ENDS SCHARNHORST’S CAREER
North Cape, Norway • December 26, 1943 On this date, the day after Christmas 1943, the German battleship (or battlecruiser) Scharnhorst and her crew of 1,968 met their fate in the Battle of the North Cape off the northern tip of Norway. At 32,100 long tons, the sleek, 771‑ft, state-of-the-art warship with nine 11‑inch (28 cm) […]
27
CIVILIAN PROGRAM TO BOOST PILOT NUMBERS
Washington, D.C. • December 27, 1938 In 1938 America’s armed forces had less than 3,000 professional pilots. To speed the production of pilots outside the U.S. armed services, President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) on this date in 1938. The program was intended, the president said, to provide a boost to […]
28
NAVY TO RECRUIT SKILLED CIVILIANS INTO SEABEE UNITS
Washington, D.C. • December 28, 1941 The Seabees were in effect combat engineers of the U.S. Navy, working and, when necessary, fighting on land. On this date in 1941 Rear Admiral Ben Moreell requested authority to organize a militarized Naval Construction Force, and a week later he gained permission from the Bureau of Navigation (later […]
29
CONSOLIDATED B-24 HEAVY BOMBER MAKES MAIDEN FLIGHT
San Diego, California • December 29, 1939 On this date in 1939 a prototype four-engine heavy bomber took off from San Diego’s Lindberg Field on its maiden flight. The flight lasted 17 minutes. Designed by Consolidated Aircraft, the prototype was initially known in-house as Model 32. Besides its distinctive twin tails and slab sides that allowed for […]
30
MAJOR COMBAT OPERATIONS ON LEYTE WIND DOWN
Tacloban, Leyte Island, Philippines • December 30, 1944 The island of Leyte, the first island in the Philippine archipelago captured by returning GIs, was securely in U.S. hands by this date in 1944. It only remained for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific Area, to announce the end of organized Japanese unit resistance, […]
31
RECORD END-OF-YEAR DELIVERY OF B-29s
Washington, D.C. • December 31, 1943 By this date in 1943 Boeing delivered its 92nd B‑29 Superfortress to the U.S. government after the giant bomber began rolling off the assembly line the previous September. Even before the country was at war and government funds had been allocated, Boeing had produced a prototype of the long-range […]
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