366 Days
Note: To open a news article, you may have to place the tip of your cursor at the top of or slightly above the news headline until the underline appears, then click your mouse.
November
News Headlines
1
RUDOLF HOESS HEADS UP AUSCHWITZ CONCENTRATION CAMP
Auschwitz (Oświęcim), German-Occupied Poland • November 1, 1940 On this date in 1940 SS Hauptsturmfuehrer (Captain) Rudolf Hoess (also Höß or Hoeß; pronounced “hearse”) (1901–1947) reported for duty as commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp in the newly annexed province of Upper Silesia in former Poland. During Hoess’s tenure at Auschwitz, the 20,000‑acre/8,094‑hectare complex of 3 separate camps […]
2
FIRST U.S. ARMY STUMBLES AT BATTLE OF SCHMIDT
Schmidt, Huertgen Forest, Germany • November 2, 1944 On September 19, 1944, elements of Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges’ First U.S. Army entered the 10‑mile/16‑km-wide, 20‑mile/32‑km-long Huertgen Forest (German, Hürtgenwald) southeast of the ancient city Aachen, the first major and westernmost city in Nazi Germany to have fallen to the Anglo-American-Canadian armies. Before the outbreak of World […]
3
JAPANESE BALLOON BOMBS STRIKE U.S. WEST COAST
Seattle, Washington • November 3, 1944 On this date in 1944 Japan began an explosive balloon campaign against the U.S. and Canada. The date was chosen to commemorate the birthday of former Emperor Meiji (1852–1912). Over the next 5 months the Special Balloon Regiment of the Japanese Army launched some 6,000 to 9,300 (sources vary) hydrogen-filled […]
4
POLISH GHETTO BLUEPRINT FOR HOLLAND
Warsaw, Occupied Poland • November 4, 1939 On this date in 1939 in Nazi-occupied Poland, newly appointed Governor-General Hans Frank established the Warsaw ghetto and began forcing the city’s Jews into a single area. Ten days later Frank and his deputy Arthur Seyss-Inquart ordered Jews in Poland to wear a white bracelet bearing a hexagonal […]
5
HIROHITO SANCTIONS WAR WITH U.S.
Tokyo, Japan • November 5, 1941 On September 6, 1941, Japanese officials, in a decision endorsed by Shōwa Emperor Hirohito, gave their diplomats until mid-October to reverse the policy of the Western powers—principally the U.S., Great Britain, and the Netherlands—of restricting Japan’s access to vital Southeast Asian resources, among them oil, rubber, tin, bauxite, timber, […]
6
BRITISH RETRIEVE GERMAN SECRET WEAPON FROM WRECK
London, England • November 6, 1940 On this date in 1940 a 2-engine German Heinkel He 111 bomber was shot down and sank in the shallows off Southern England. A waterlogged X‑Geraet (“X‑device”) was recovered. The X‑Geraet played a role in the Battle of the Beams, a period early in the war when German bombers were […]
7
ROOSEVELT TOLD WEST COAST JAPANESE POSE NO SECURITY RISK
Washington, D.C. • November 7, 1941 Relations between the U.S. and Japan grew chilly in mid-1941 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the U.S. and embargoed oil and gasoline exports to Japan in retaliation for that country’s occupation of Indochinese airfields in what is today Vietnam. The year before Roosevelt had banned […]
8
GERMANS SINK FIRST U.S. SHIP IN WORLD WAR II
Melbourne, Australia • November 8, 1940 The war between the Allies and the German Kriegsmarine (Navy) is well known. Indeed, the Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945) was the longest-fought battle of World War II. It primarily involved Allied and neutral merchantmen, typically under armed escort, carrying food, oil products, iron ore, steel, weapons, and other wartime […]
9
U.N. RELIEF AND REHABILITATION ADMINISTRATION CREATED
Washington, D.C. • November 9, 1943 On this date in 1943 in Washington, D.C., U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added his signature to an agreement by representatives of 44 nations to establish the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. UNRRA (pronounced un-ruh) was the first U.N. organization to be created, established 1½ years before the United Nations […]
10
GERMANS, ITALIANS HUDDLE AFTER TORCH LANDINGS
Munich, Germany • November 10, 1942 On this date in 1942, just 2 days after Allied landings in Vichy French-held Morocco and Algeria (Operation Torch), Italian dictator Benito Mussolini sent his son-in-law, foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano, to Munich in his stead to speak with Adolf Hitler. Mussolini had wanted to meet the Fuehrer in Salzburg, in […]
11
JAPAN’S PATH TO WAR WITH U.S. PASSES THROUGH ITALY’S TARANTO
Tokyo, Japan • November 11, 1940 Seventh child to a Japanese schoolmaster and his second wife and named “Isoruku” to memorialize his father’s age (56), the future commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Combined Fleet (Rengō Kantai) for much of World War II would seem to have been born under what Westerners call “a lucky star.” […]
12
RAF ENDS GERMAN BATTLESHIP TIRPITZ’S CAREER
Tromsø Fjord, Occupied Norway • November 12, 1944 On this date in Norway’s Tromsø Fjord the British Royal Air Force dropped 3 “Tallboy” 13,000‑lb/5,897‑kg bombs to capsize the German battleship Tirpitz, the Kriegsmarine’s ill-starred wannabe surface raider. Ever since September 22, 1943, when a pair of Royal Navy midget submarines engineered a hair-raising daylight attack on this […]
13
RED BALL EXPRESS TO CEASE CONVOY OPERATIONS
Utah Beach, Liberated France • November 13, 1944 On this date in 1944 Utah Beach ceased operations as an offloading site for men and supplies intended for Allied armies chasing eastward-fleeing Germans across France. Utah Beach was 1 of 5 Normandy invasion beaches where Allied men at arms and military equipment came ashore to liberate German-occupied […]
14
NAZIS BACK VLASOV’S RUSSIAN LIBERATION ARMY AND COMMITTEE
Prague, Occupied Czechoslovakia • November 14, 1944 On this date in German-occupied Czechoslovakia Lt. Gen. Andrei (Andrey) Andreievich Vlasov read aloud the Prague Manifesto to members of the newly created Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia. Among its 14 principles, the Prague Manifesto guaranteed freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly, as well […]
15
GERMANS PREPARE SURPRISE OFFENSIVE IN ARDENNES FOREST
Cologne, Germany • November 15, 1944 As the Allied offensive ground on west of the Rhine River, dozens of German tank and infantry divisions gathered in assembly areas northwest of the city of Cologne and in the thick forest cover of the Eiffel mountains on this date in 1944. Conceived by Adolf Hitler, the multi-stage […]
16
U.S. ARMY BOGS DOWN IN HUERTGEN FOREST
Huertgen, Germany • November 16, 1944 On September 19, 1944, elements of Lt. Gen. Courtney Hodges’ First U.S. Army entered the 10‑mile/16‑km-wide, 20‑mile/32‑km-long Huertgen Forest (Hürtgenwald) southeast of Aachen. The ancient capital of Holy Roman emperor Charlemagne and a northern node on Germany’s “dragons’ teeth” defensive Westwall (known to the Allies as the 390‑mile/628‑km-long Siegfried […]
17
ITALY EMBARKS ON ANTI-SEMITIC CAMPAIGN
Rome, Italy • November 17, 1938 On July 14, 1938, Italy’s Manifesto of Racial Scientists (Manifesto Degli Scienziati Razzisti) laid out a scientific explanation for the politics of biological racism. Signed by 42 eminent Italians, the manifesto, published in Il Giornale d’Italia, a newspaper strongly supporting Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime, declared that Italians belonged to […]
18
OPERATION CRUSADER TO LIFT AXIS SIEGE OF TOBRUK
Tobruk, Cyrenaica, Eastern Libya • November 18, 1941 On this date in 1941 the British Eighth Army, an assortment of British, Commonwealth, Indian, and other Allied servicemen commanded by Lt. Gen. Alan Cunningham (from November 26 by Lt. Gen. Neil Ritchie), launched a surprise military operation from Egyptian territory against Axis forces in Eastern Libya […]
19
SOVIETS MOVE TO TRAP GERMAN SIXTH ARMY
Stalingrad, Soviet Union • November 19, 1942 On this date in 1942 the Soviets kicked off Operation Uranus, Phase I of the Red Army’s encirclement of Gen. Friedrich Paulus’ Sixth Army (the single-largest German troop formation), as well as the German Fourth Panzer Army and the Third and Fourth Romanian armies at Stalingrad (today’s Volgograd). […]
20
JAPAN’S KAITEN—HUMAN-PILOTED TORPEDOES—CLAIM FIRST U.S. VICTIM
Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands, Western Pacific • November 20, 1944 On this date in November 1944, an hour before daybreak, 3 Japanese Kaitens—human-piloted torpedoes—wakelessly and silently motored eastward through an opening in the coral reef that surrounded the 212‑sq. mile/596‑sq. km Ulithi lagoon in the Caroline Islands. Up until early 1945 Ulithi Atoll was the U.S. […]
21
WAR CRIMES TRIAL BEGINS FOR HITLER’S HENCHMEN
Nuremberg, Germany • November 21, 1945 On this date in 1945 in Germany the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Trials) of Nazi leaders got down to business in the Bavarian city where Adolf Hitler had staged his 1930s showy Nazi Party rallies. The legal basis for the trials was established by the London Charter, issued by […]
22
FOREIGN NATIONALS CREATE NANKING SAFETY ZONE
Nanking, China • November 22, 1937 On this date in 1937 in Nanking (today’s Nanjing), China’s capital at the time, 15 foreign businessmen, missionaries, and journalists under the leadership of German national and Nazi Party member John Rabe organized the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. The mission of the committee was to shelter Chinese […]
23
U.S. MARINES SCORE VICTORY AT TARAWA
Tarawa, Gilbert Islands • November 23, 1943 On this date in 1943 the first U.S. offensive in the Central Pacific region was declared won after 76 hours of fierce fighting. The 4,800 Japanese defenders (soldiers, marines, and Japanese and Korean construction workers) on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands were well-supplied and well-prepared, and they […]
24
ALLIES ADOPT WAR PLANS FOR 1944 AGAINST AXIS
Cairo, Egypt • November 24, 1943 On this date in 1943 in Egypt, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (leader of a sometimes forgotten ally) continued their series of talks during their Cairo Conference (November 23–27, 1943). Churchill and his party had hoped to establish a […]
25
CAPTURING MAKIN ATOLL: NO WALK IN THE PARK
Makin Atoll, Gilbert Islands, West-Central Pacific Ocean • November 25, 1943 Makin Atoll (or Makin Island) is one of 16 coral atolls in the Pacific’s Gilbert Islands chain and lies on the Equator halfway between Hawaii and Australia. The capture of the atoll with its excellent seaplane base, air base, and communications center by 6,470 heavily armored […]
26
JAPANESE CARRIERS SET OUT FOR PEARL HARBOR
Hitokappu Bay, Kurile Islands, Northern Japan • November 26, 1941 For several months the airmen of Japan’s First Naval Air Fleet had trained for an attack on the main base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Squadrons of naval planes flew low over the city of Kagoshima on […]
27
PELELIU SECURED IN COSTLY AMPHIBIOUS OPERATION
Peleliu, Palau Islands, Western Pacific Ocean • November 27, 1944 On this date in 1944, after 74 grueling days Peleliu was declared secure, although isolated pockets of Japanese resistance took many more days to exterminate. The battle for the island, ironically codenamed Operation Stalemate II, turned out to be the costliest amphibious operation in U.S. history: […]
28
FREE FRENCH FIGHTER PILOTS TO FLY WITH SOVIETS
Moscow, Soviet Union • November 28, 1942 On this date in 1942, while the Battle of Stalingrad was still being fought, 12 Free French fighter pilots and their ground crews, flying from newly liberated Syria in the Eastern Mediterranean, landed at their Ivanovo training center, 125 miles/201 km northeast of the Soviet capital, Moscow. Earlier in the year, […]
29
HITLER: GERMAN NAVY TO BRING ENGLAND TO HEEL
Berlin, Germany • November 29, 1939 On this date in 1939, nearly 3 months after the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) overran neighboring Poland, launching World War II in Europe, German dictator Adolf Hitler issued Fuehrer Directive Number 9, the first of 2 directives on measures his country would have to take to render the British economy and infrastructure […]
30
NAZI MASSACRE IN RUMBULA FOREST
Riga, German-Occupied Latvia • November 30, 1941 On November 25 and 29, 1941, Einsatzgruppe 3 (Special Task Group 3), one of many SS (short for Schutzstaffel) mobile death squads operating behind German front lines, murdered 5,000 “Reich Jews,” that is, German- and Austrian-born Jews. These men, women, and children had arrived in the Baltic ghetto at Kaunas, Lithuania’s […]