July 1944
(France – Normandy)
Having secured all five beaches on the Normandy coastline, the Allied invasion on D-Day (6th June 1944) had not reached the planned objectives at the day’s end. Stubborn resistance by the German defenders slowed down the Allied advance inland from the beaches. Both sides took heavy casualties. In the early hours of the 9th July 1944 British and Canadian patrols entered the city of Caen, following the evacuation of the Germans. By noon the city was liberated and French civilians came out of their homes to celebrate with the troops bringing with them glasses and bottles of wine. U.S. troops consolidated and began the advance to Saint-Lo, in the Carentan region of north-west Normandy but ran into resistance which turned into the “Battle of the Hedgerows” in the Bocage. During the planning stages of D-Day the Allied intelligence had not properly evaluated the area. They faced narrow roads and fields surrounded by hedgerows plus the fact the German defenders flooded the area by opening up the sea defences. By the 18th July 1944 Saint-Lo, an important rail complex, was overrun. The final destination was the deep-water Port of Cherbourg. The out-numbered German defenders surrendered and the port was liberated on the 29th July 1944.
German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, Supreme Commander of the German Atlantic wall, was at home celebrating his wife’s 50th Birthday when the Allied forces landed in Normandy on D-Day. He was immediately recalled and returned to his headquarters. In a meeting with Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, Rommel was rebuffed and told to focus on military operations, when he requested re-enforcements for the defence of Normandy. By mid-July 1944 the German defensive positions were crumbling. On the 17th July 1944, returning from a visit to the headquarters of the 1st SS Panzer Corps, the car he was travelling in was strafed by an RAF fighter plane near Sainte-Foy-de-Montgomery. The driver of the staff car speeded up but was wounded and the car veered off the road and hit some trees. Rommel was badly injured with glass wounds to the left side of his face and skull fractures. He was hospitalised and never involved in anymore military operations again until his possible involvement in the 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler.
(Germany)
A Group of mainly Wehmacht Officers plotted to assassinate Hitler, overthrow the Nazi regime and make peace with the Allies. On the 20th July 1944 the bomb hidden in a briefcase was moved behind the large heavy legs of a table so that the force of the explosion missed Hitler and he was injured. The plot failed and 7,000 suspects were arrested, Claus von Stauffenburg, as leader of the plot together with 4,980 were executed.
The Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter entered service in the Nazi Luftwaffe on the 18th July 1944 The Me262 was considerably faster than the conventional British piston-engine fighter. They were also more heavily armed, but because of the greater speed, only short bursts of machine-gun fire was available for each attack run. The first aerial engagement was with an unarmed British de Havilland Mosquito over Germany on the 26th July 1944. Flying on a reconnaissance mission over Munich, the Mosquito evaded the three attempts by the Me262 to shoot it down. Although the Mosquito sustained some damage, the pilot successfully landed safely at Fermo in Italy.
The Messerschmitt Co designed, tested and produced the Me163B Komet rocket fighter, and was an addition to the to the more famous Me262 jet fighter. Me163B was the only rocket powered fighter aircraft in history and in addition, the first aircraft to exceed 620 mph (1,000 km/hr). Because of its high speed the Me162B only had a short time in which to attack the enemy, it took several runs to achieve any chance of success. On the 28th July 1944 the first aerial combat between one Me162B and two USAAF B-17 Flying Fortress bombers occurred. The B-17s were flying on one of over 6,000 raids on the Leuna Synthetic Fuel Facilities in Saxony, Germany. No records can be found of the outcome, despite the fact the engagement occurred.
(Eastern Front)
On the Eastern Front in July 1944 Germanys’ impetus had finally been halted. The Soviet Union’s Red Army began a large scale counter-attack. On a front from the north coast of Estonia, located in the Gulf of Finland, stretching south to Ukraine, located by the Black Sea the counter-attack began. The city of Minsk was captured on the 4th July 1944. By the 26th July 1944 the Red Army had captured the besieged city of Leningrad and on the 28th July 1944 the Soviet troops had defeated the Germans at Brest- Litovsk. Nazi Germany continued to retreat until the end of the war in May 1945.
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Whilst the Red Army were sustaining losses and starvation on the battlefields, the civilian population of the Soviet Union also suffered the privations of war. One prime example was that of Tanya Savicheva, a 14 year old girl who basically died of starvation in besieged Leningrad. On the 1st July 1944 Tanya succumbed to intestinal tuberculosis. Tanya was born in January 1930, to a baker father and seamstress mother, the youngest of five children. When she was six years old her father died leaving his widow with three girls and two boys. In an attempt to wipe Leningrad “off the map” the Germans began the bombardment of the city, cutting off supplies and the siege of Leningrad began in 1941. The bombardment destroyed all the stored supplies for the city. The family had originally decided to stay in Leningrad rather than leave for the countryside. Instead the family were trapped, unable to leave. With exception of one brother, who had joined the partisans, the whole family worked to support the Army. At 11 years old, Tanya worked at digging trenches and helped by extinguishing firebombs. About this time she began keeping diaries and recording daily events, but eventually these diaries were burnt in order to help to keep the family warm in the harshest of winter weather. Whatever could be eaten was eaten, as food was not getting through to the civilians. Her sister Nina disappeared during a bombardment on Leningrad and her family assumed she had died. Nina had a notebook for her work commitment which included alphabetical pages left blank. Only nine entries went into the diary, the first on the 28th December 1941
Zhenya died on 28th Dec at 12.00 PM 1941.
Grandma died on 25th Jan. 3 PM 1942.
Leka died on 17th March at 5 AM 1942.
Uncle Vasya died on 13th Apr. at 2 o’clock after midnight 1942.
Uncle Leshla on 10th May at 7.30 AM 1942.
Mum on 13th May at 7.39 AM 1942.
Savichevs died.
Everyone died.
Only Tanya is left.
As one of approximately 140 orphaned children she was taken to a village outside Leningrad in August 1942 by a specialist nursing brigade. Although most of the children survived, Tanya was too ill and sent to hospital. For two years she hung on but finally died of intestinal tuberculosis on the 1st July 1944, aged 14. However, Tanya’s sister, Nina and brother, Mikhail survived the war. Nina returned to the family home in Leningrad and found the notebook with Tanya’s little diary inside. She gave the diary to a journalist and it is now on display in the Museum of Leningrad History in St. Petersburg.
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(Eastern Front – Poland)
The resistance movement of the Polish Home Army underground forces began an uprising against Nazi German occupation of the city of Lviv on the 23rd July 1944. Operation Tempest was the codename for the secret plan by the Soviet Union to advance on the Eastern Front. The Red Army had advanced into Poland in late 1943 and the German forces in the occupied city of Lviv was targeted. The uprising in the district of Lwow lasted from the 23rd-27th July 1944 by Polish troops and the underground movement. The Red Army assisted by the gradually increasing Soviet 10th Tank Corps. Upon the capture of the city the Red Army disarmed all Polish troops. The officers were arrested by the Soviet NKVD. The ordinary Polish soldiers were either arrested, conscripted in the Red Army or sent to Gulag camps. The German occupation of the city was replaced by the Soviet occupation.
On the outskirts of the city of Lublin, in central Poland, the Nazi operated Majdanek concentration camp was liberated by Soviet troops on the 24th July 1944. The rapid advance of the Red Army during 0peration Bagration prevented the German SS guards from destroying the infrastructure. Majdanek was one of the largest Nazi concentration camps, consisting of seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows and 227 structural building. To house Polish slave labour, Majdanek was originally intended to be a labour camp rather than an extermination camp. However, from October 1941, the German plan was to murder Polish Jews on an industrial scale. When the Soviet troops captured the city, Majdanek was virtually intact and the Nazi SS guards had failed to remove the most incriminating evidence of war crimes. The site was from then on protected by the Soviet Union. The intact gas chambers and crematorium ovens were turned into a museum whilst the war was still ongoing. By turning the site into a museum, it served as some of the examples of the genocidal policy of Nazi Germany.
(Pacific)
In the Pacific the fortunes of war had turned against the Japanese. During the Battle of Saipan, on the 7th July 1944, the largest banzai charge took place against the American 105th Infantry Regiment. The banzai charge is considered by the Japanese to be an “honourable suicide attack” rather than be captured by the enemy. Almost 4,300 Japanese troops, walking wounded and unarmed civilians were ordered to carry out the charge. The 15 hour pitched battle was ultimately repulsed and almost all of the Japanese were killed. On the 8th July 1944 Saipan was declared secure but the Americans had lost almost 2,000 men to achieve the victory. With Saipan secured and the recently introduced Boeing B-29 Superfortress Strategic bombers flying out of newly built airfields Tokyo was in range as a target. On the 10th July 1944, B-29 bombers attacked the city for the first time since the Doolittle Raids in April 1942. Incendiary bombs were dropped on the city as they were effective against wood and paper buildings. On the island of Papua New Guinea the Japanese were still resisting. On the 18th July 1944 Hideki Tojo resigned as Japanese chief minister of government. He had that position during the glory days of Japan and was fully supported by Emperor Hirohito. Following the fall of Saipan he had lost the support of the Emperor and forced to resign. The Second Battle of Guam began on the 21st July 1944 when U.S Marines landed on the island in readiness to recapturing the island. During the First Battle of Guam the Japanese captured the U.S. territory in the Mariana Islands in 1941. U.S. Marines invaded Tinian Island on the 24th July 1944. The island had formed part of the Japanese line of communications and its location is too close to Saipan to allow it to be bypassed. The island was secured on the 1st August 1944 and joined Saipan and Guam as a base for the B-29 bombers.
(Other Areas)
Franklin D. Roosevelt announced he would run for a fourth term as President of the United States of America on the 11th July 1944, despite his declining health. Apparently he later told a confidant that he might resign from the presidency following the end of the war. His first term as President began in March 1943 during the worst depression in its history. A quarter of the workforce were unemployed and over two million people were homeless. His policies of “relief, recovery and reform” was successful which enabled the U.S. to become a powerful nation. When the European War began in 1939, America was supplying the Allies on a “Lease-lend” basis. American involvement in the Second World War was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941.
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The Bay Museum & Research Facility 