366 Days
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December
News Headlines
1
GERMAN GIRLS MUST ENROLL IN HITLER YOUTH PROGRAM
Berlin, Germany • December 1, 1936 On April 20, 1930 (Adolf Hitler’s 41st birthday), the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Maedel, abbreviated BDM) was founded in Germany. It was the female wing of Hitler’s Nazi Party youth organization, the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend, abbreviated HJ), whose origins dated to 1922 under several different names. Recruitment […]
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 4-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, just 4 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 […]
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 […]
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), 1 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 3 hours MacArthur learned that Japanese carrier […]
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
HITLER TO GENERALS: OUR VICTORY IS CERTAIN
Adlerhorst Forward HQ, Central Hessen, Germany • December 12, 1944 “It is essential to deprive the enemy of his belief that victory is certain,” Adolf Hitler told his generals on this date, December 12, 1944, at his rural Adlerhorst (Eagle’s Nest) headquarters near Bad Nauheim, Germany, the camouflaged western command outpost that Architect of the Reich […]
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 IS STEPPING STONE TO 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
ALLIES DENOUNCE NAZI KILLING OF JEWS
Washington, D.C. and London, England • December 17, 1942 In remarks he made to 14 senior Nazis at a top-secret conference in the fashionable Berlin suburb of Wannsee on January 22, 1942, 38‑year-old SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Head [or Main] Office as also head of the German secret police apparatus, spoke of […]
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
FINNISH AID TO DISRUPT NAZI ORE IMPORTS
London, England · December 19, 1939 In 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 the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Ribbentrop, was […]
20
ROOSEVELT: U.S. MUST PLAN FOR ITS DEFENSE
Washington, D.C. · December 20, 1940 On this date in 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed William Knudsen to head a 4‑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 Danish […]
21
ROMANIA’S CENTER GOVERNMENT FALLS, FASCISTS IN?
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 2 runner-up parties. A week later King Carol II named the […]
22
U.S., BRITISH LEADERS FORMULATE WAR PLANS FOR 1942
Washington, D.C • December 22, 1941 On this date in 1941 the Japanese public glimpsed their first photos in the newspaper Asahi Shimbun of their country’s devastating attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the worst military catastrophe in American history. On the same date, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister […]
23
FAILED OPERATION WINTER STORM DOOMS GERMANS IN STALINGRAD
Southwest of Stalingrad, Soviet Union • December 23, 1941 On this date in 1942 the German Wehrmacht (armed forces) ended Operation Winter Storm (German, Unternehmen Wintergewitter), the 11‑day attempt by German Army Group Don, a new formation commanded by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, to break the Soviet envelopment of Gen. Friedrich Paulus’ German Sixth […]
24
DE GAULLE LOYALISTS SEIZE VICHY FRENCH ISLANDS OFF CANADA
Washington, D.C. • December 24, 1941 On this grim date, Christmas Eve 1941, a tiny piece of Vichy France—the Atlantic islets of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, whose granite outcroppings lay just 12 miles/19 km off the Newfoundland coast adjacent to Canada—fell to the forces of Free France. It was the first French territory to be liberated in […]
25
GLUM DAMPENS GERMAN CHRISTMAS SPIRITS
Berlin, Germany • December 25, 1941 On this date in 1941 Japanese citizens celebrated the 15th anniversary of the succession to the Imperial Throne of Emperor Hirohito (posthumously referred to as Emperor Shōwa), according to tradition the 124th direct descendant of Jimmu, the legendary first ruler of the Empire of the Rising Sun. Festive toasts […]
26
BRITISH TRAP ENDS SCHARNHORST’S CAREER
North Cape, Norway • December 26, 1943 On this date, the day after Christmas 1943, the German battleship (aka 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/235‑m state-of-the-art warship fitted out with 9 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 SET TO RECRUIT 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
LONDON SURVIVES END-OF-YEAR BLITZ
London, England • December 29, 1940 On this date in 1940, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appealed to the nation in a radio “fireside chat” to support his proposal to strengthen the U.S. military in light of developments in Europe, the German Luftwaffe delivered a massive attack on London. Almost 3,000 civilians were killed in the […]
30
CHURCHILL ADDRESSES CANADIAN LAWMAKERS
Ottawa, Canada • December 30, 1941 On December 28, 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill left Washington’s Union Station, the capital’s major train station, for Canada. Six days earlier Churchill and his military and civilian advisers had arrived in the United States aboard the Royal Navy’s newly commissioned battleship, the HMS Duke of York, to […]
31
RECORD YEAR-END 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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