Eighty Years Ago This Week

The Americans launched the invasion of Saipan in the Mariana Islands with an assault by two divisions, one Army one US Marines. This was roughly the same size as the defending forces, also two divisions although US intelligence underestimated this badly. The garrison's land based air support was wiped out before the landings took place and the US Navy could bombard Japanese defence almost at will. The Japanese fought on fanatically. Apart from the destruction of Japanese forces, the operation  would secure Saipan as a base from which B-29 bombers could attack the Japanese home islands. The  invasion drew the remaining strength of the Imperial Japanese Navy into a battle, the Battle of the Philippine Sea. The USN had a huge material superiority: 7 fleet carriers and  8  light carriers compared to the IJN' s 3 fleet and 6 light carriers. With 900 aircraft the Americans had double the number of carrier borne aircraft as the Japanese. The outcome was calamatious for the ...

  Churchill had been baulked in his desire to be present at the D-Day landings themselves but was finally able to visit the Normandy beachhead. He crossed the Channel on destroyer HMS Kelvin and made sure that she shelled German positions rather than just acting as a VIP transport. He lunched with General Montgomery at his HQ three miles from the front line. When he asked if there was any risk that the Germans would disrupt the gathering, Montgomery was able to tell him that the headquarters had been shelled the previous night. Soviet negotiations with Finland had come to nothing and Stalin decided to try to knock Finland out of the war by military action. Eleven divisions and other armoured units were switched to the front, more than doubling Red Army resources. The offensive was launched northwards up the relatively narrow Karelian Isthmus. The front there had been almost static for two years and the Finns had prepared strong defences. The immediate goal was to drive the Finnish ...

        The Germans withdrew towards northern Italy after the Gustav Line had been breached and the breakout from the Anzio beachhead. Marshal Kesselring declared Rome an open city as their forces withdrew; orders to destroy its bridges were ignored. Led by US general Mark Clark the Allies entered the city, the first European capital to be liberated.  The news about Rome was immediately swamped by the D-Day landings in Normandy, probably the largest and best planned single operation of war ever undertaken. It was also arguably the highest risk operation ever. Only a few months before Churchill had been hoping to avoid the risk by attacking the Germans across the Adriatic into the Balkans. The allies were braced for the possibility of defeat; General Eisenhower, the supreme commander, had even written a communique announcing the failure of the attack. There was no significant fall-back or alternative plan. Field-Marshal Rommel had advocated a strategy of an all-o...

  The Germans launched Operation Rösselsprung (knight's move) a full-scale attack on Drvar in the mountains of Yugoslavia where Tito's partisans were known to have their headquarters. The Italian surrender in September 1943 had put large amounts of weaponry in the partisans' hands and they held sway over large areas of the territory. The operation was led by the airborne landing of an SS paratroop battalion. The partisans were taken by surprise and the area was swiftly overrun but the Germans did not know the exact location of Tito's headquarters - sited in a cave - and he escaped. The strategic position was unchanged, although the Germans could console themselves with propaganda pictures of their soldiers in the mouth of the cave. The British and American forces which had been pinned down on the Anzio beachhead since the landing in January finally broke out in a full scale assault, Operation Buffalo . Despite strong German resistance the Americans reached Cis...

  The Polish Secret Army resistance movement located the crash site of a V-2 rocket in marshland on the bank of the Bug River. After the bombing of Peenemuende, trials had been moved to a more remote and safe location in central Poland. The resistants first pushed the wreckage under water until the Germans abandoned their search then removed key components which were taken  200km by bicycle to a suitable landing ground whence they were  flown to the British in Italy. The newly ennobled John Maynard Keynes presented the agreement that he had negotiated with the US on post-war monetary organisation to the House of Lords. He was able to assure peers that the scheme of an International Monetary Fund did not involve a return to the catastrophic strait-jacket of the pre-war Gold Standard. The financial ignoramuses who had opposed the scheme because they had feared such a thing, remained silent and Keynes enjoyed a triumph. Churchill gave a major speech on foreign affairs which ...

    Under the command of General Alexander, four army corps - one British, one Canaadian, one French and one US - launched Operation Diadem to breach the Gustav line, the main German  defensive position in Italy along the Liri river. The French corps included North African goumiers, who enjoyed a reputation as fearsome fighters but also for their remorseless treatment of the local population. The German strong point and keystone of the Gustav Line at Monte Cassino had held off repeated allied attacks since January of that year. The attack would also break the deadlock that had ruled since the landing at Anzio had failed to turn the German flank and left the landing force pinned down on the coast. Breaking the Gustav Line was to open the way to Rome but it had been timed to tie down German forces in Italy so that they would be unavailable to transfer to France to counter the cross-channel invasion due in a few weeks time. The US Eighth Air Force launched a campaign agains...

  361 RAF bombers attacked the training area of 21st Panzer division at Mailly-le-Camp as part of Bomber Command's new commitment to support the upcoming land battle for France. The camp was levelled and 37 tanks were destroyed but at a heavy cost. Delays in marking the target allowed Luftwaffe night-fighters time to attack and they shot down 42 Lancasters, a prohibitive loss rate of 11.6% and one of the worst suffered on a major raid. The Red Army retook Sevastopol, which the Germans had never fully fortified during their occupation. The evacuation of Axis troops trapped on the Crimea was partially successful with some 30,000 troops rescued largely thanks to the Romanian navy. However, the Axis lost some 60,000 men (half German, half Romanian), many of whom were lost on ships sunk during the evacuation. The administrative committee of the Labour Party voted to expel left-winger Nye Bevan when he voted against new defence regulations outlawing wildcat strikes, notably in the mines,...