This day in military history..

[tomtom22]

April 27th

1941: German troops enter Athens, the Greek capital.
1944: German planes spot an Allied convoy west of Start Point along the Channel Coast. The convoy is actually making a practice run for the planned invasion of Normandy on a stretch of coast very much alike to that found in the Normandy region of France. The 5.Schnellbootflottille and 9.Schnellbootflottille are directed to attack at night, which they do with the following boats: S100, S130, S138, S138, S140, S142, S143, S145, S150. They engaged the convoy, consisting of 8 landing craft (LSTs or Landing Ship Tank), and protected only by the English Korvette Azeala, at Lyme Bay. The result: LST 507, on fire, had to be given up, LST 531 was sunk, and LST 289 received a torpedo hit which killed many soldiers. Total Allied losses were 197 seaman and 441 soldiers lost. The event was largely covered up by the Allies during and after WWII and is not well known.
1945: The US First Army (Hodges) captures Straubing and Kempten in Bavaria, while in Italy the US Fifth Army (Clark) enters Genoa. In the battle of Berlin, Red Army units reach the government center, close to the Reichstag and Hitler's bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery. The German 12. Armee (Wenck) defending against US forces on the Elbe is ordered to launch a relief attack east toward Potsdam and Berlin. The Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front captures Prenzlau and Tangermnde 70 NW of Berlin.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/april.html

1861 - President Lincoln extended blockade of Confederacy to VA and NC ports
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesapr.htm

1942: Darwin bombed by Japanese aircraftDarwin was bombed 64 times during the Second World War.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/apr.htm

1813: Toronto Ontario - Invasion force of 1,700 US troops under Zebulon Pike and Henry Dearborn assaults the town of York; Sheaffe and 600 defenders withdraw to Kingston; Americans torch Upper Canada's parliament buildings, and depart May 8 after burning and looting the town. Britain retaliates a year later by raiding Washington, and setting fire to the White House.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=Apr&day=27

1296 - Battle of Dunbar: The Scots are defeated by Edward I of England.
1650 - The Battle of Carbisdale: A Royalist army invades mainland Scotland from Orkney Island but is defeated by a Covenanter army.
1945 - World War II: Last German troops are expelled from Finnish Lapland (the last day of World War II going on in Finland). The day is the national war veteran day in Finland.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_27

 

[tomtom22]

April 28th

1940: British and French forces that were landed on the coast of Norway are evacuated by the Royal Navy.
1945: The Canadian First Army (Crerar) captures Emden and Wilhelmshaven, while the US Seventh Army (Patch) occupies Augsburg, Regensburg and Ingolstadt. In the battle of Berlin, the Red Army reaches the Anhalt Station and is within half a mile of the Führerbunker. Hitler marries his mistress, Eva Braun, and dictates his political testament in which he justifies the political and military actions of his 12-year-rule, blaming the war on international Jewry and exhorting the German people even after defeat to adhere to the principles of National Socialism, especially its racial laws; he appoints Grossadmiral Dönitz as his successor. In the English Channel, German U-boats have sunk 8 Allied ships, 3 destroyers and 2 corvettes.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/april.html

1952: Australia ratifies peace treaty with Japan and official ending of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) - From the end of 1948 Australia had taken on the largest role in BCOF. When the state of occupation ended the Commonwealth organisation in Japan was redesignated British Commonwealth Forces Korea and continued supplying and administering Commonwealth forces then fighting in Korea.source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1789 - Mutiny on the HMS Bounty. CaptainWilliam Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift and the rebel crew returns to Tahiti briefly and then sets sail for Pitcairn Island.
1796 - The Armistice of Cherasco is signed by Napoleon Bonaparte and Vittorio Amedeo III, the King of Sardinia, expanding French territory along the Mediterranean coast.
1862 - American Civil War: AdmiralDavid Farragut captures New Orleans, Louisiana.
1970 - Vietnam War: U.S. PresidentRichard M. Nixon formally authorizes American combat troops to fight communist sanctuaries in Cambodia.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_28

1972: North Vietnamese press South Vietnamese at Hue and Kontum - The North Vietnamese offensive continues as Fire Base Bastogne, 20 miles west of Hue, falls to the communists. Fire Base Birmingham, 4 miles to the east, was also under heavy attack. As fighting intensified all across the northern province of South Vietnam, much of Hue's civilian population tried to escape south to Da Nang. Farther south in the Central Highlands, 20,000 North Vietnamese troops converged on Kontum, encircling it and cutting it off. Only 65 miles north of Saigon, An Loc lay under siege and continued to take a pummeling from North Vietnamese artillery, rockets, and ground attacks. To the American command in Saigon, it appeared that South Vietnam was on the verge of total defeat by the North Vietnamese, but the South Vietnamese were able to hold out.
source: http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/

1940: Allied reinforcements arrive in Aandalesnes, Norway.
1941: The British evacuation of Greece is completed.
1942: At what turns out to be its last meeting, the puppet Nazi Reichstag passes legislation proclaiming Hitler "Supreme Judge of the German People," formalising the Fuhrer's position as being above the reach of the law. Coastal "dimouts" go into effect along a fifteen-mile strip on the Eastern Seaboard, in response to German U-boat activity of the U.S. Atlantic coast.
1943: British forces repulse a last, desperate Panzer counter blow in Tunisia.
1944: Chinese forces retreat in central China.
1945: Russian forces are fighting in the Wilhelmstrasse and reach the Anhalt Station which is just half a mile of the Führerbunker. The U.S. Fifth Army take Brescia, 30 miles East of Milan. The British Eighth Army reaches Venice. Italian Partisans capture Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci and 12 of his cabinet members in a German convoy trying to reach Switzerland. All are shot in nearby village. The Canadian First Army captures Emden and Wilhelmshaven, while the U.S. Seventh Army takes Augsburg and reaches the Austrian border to the South.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

1862 - Naval forces capture Forts Jackson and St. Philip, LA
1965 - Dominican Republic intervention began
1944 - U.S. LSTs attacked during Operation Tiger
1993 - SECDEF memo orders Armed Forces to train and assign women on combat aircraft and most combat ships, but not to ground combat positions.
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesapr.htm

1760: Ste-Foy Quebec - François, Duc de Lévis, with 5,000 soldiers and Indians, defeats James Murray's 3,900 British troops at the Battle of Ste-Foy; Murray, leader of the British after Wolfe's death, wisely retreats behind the walls of Quebec to wait for reinforcements by ship.
1945: Netherlands - Truce arranged between Canadian and German forces in Holland.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=Apr&day=28

 

[tomtom22]

End of World War II is near

April 29th

1945: The British Second Army crosses the Elbe at Lauenburg, 20 miles E of Hamburg, and advances toward Schwerin and Wismar in Mecklenburg. The French First Army (de Tassigny) captures Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. In the battle of Berlin, the Red Army has now captured most of the city except for the area around the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichskanzlei and the Reichstag which is still fiercely defended by isolated units of the Waffen-SS.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/april.html

1915: HMA Submarine AE2 sunk in the Sea of Marmara - AE2 was the first submarine to penetrate the Dardanelles. For five days the AE2 carried out orders to disrupt Turkish shipping. When her torpedoes were exhausted and she was attacked by Turkish gunboats the submarine was scuttled and her crew captured.
1965: Prime Minister Menzies announces the commitment of an infantry battalion to Vietnam - Australia's involvement in Vietnam was a gradual process of commitment. By April 1965 there were 100 members of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam in Vietnam. The commitment of a battalion represented a major step in Australia's involvement and precipitated further increases in the number of Australians serving in Vietnam until reductions in their number began in 1970.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1429 - Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orléans.
1672 - Franco-Dutch War: Louis XIV of France invades the Netherlands.
1862 - American Civil War: New Orleans falls to Union forces under Admiral David Farragut.
1945 - World War II: The German Army in Italy unconditionally surrenders to the Allies.
1945 - World War II: Start of Operation Manna, supply drops into Holland.
1970 - Vietnam War: United States and South Vietnamese forces invade Cambodia to hunt Viet Cong.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_29

1776: Nathanael Greene takes command of Long Island - Shortly after the American victory at Boston, Massachusetts, General George Washington orders Brigadier General Nathanael Greene to take command of Long Island and set up defensive positions against a possible British attack on New York City.
1916: British forces surrender at Kut, Mesopotamia - In the single largest surrender of troops in British history to that time, some 13,000 soldiers under the command of Sir Charles Townshend give in on April 29, 1916, after withstanding nearly five months under siege by Turkish and German forces at the town of Kut-al-Amara, on the Tigris River in the Basra province of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).
source: http://www.history.com/tdih.do?

1917: Chemin des Dames Offensive ends. A month long series of mutinies break out amongst the French army.
1940: King Haakon VII and his government are evacuated from Molde and taken to Tromso in northern Norway, from where they can continue the fight.
1941: Another Brigade from the British 10th Indian Division lands at Basra, ignoring Iraqi's protests. The Iraqi Army lays siege to The RAF base at Habbaniyh, although RAF planes fly numerous air strikes against them. British intelligence 'Ultra', intercept numerous messages giving a positive indication that the Germans plan to attack Crete.
1942: Japanese troops capture Lashio, thereby cutting the vital 'Burma Road' supply route into China. The Japanese continue to land reinforcements on Mindanao Island as they step up attacks against the Filipino garrison. The shelling of Corregidor increases as the Japanese prepare to invade the Island. Another sixteen Spitfires are delivered to Malta by Force H. The Belgian resistance destroys Tenderloo chemical works, killing more that 250. Executions by the Germans reported to be running at 25-30 a month in Belgium.
1943: U-boats begin a six-day attack on Convoy ONS5, during which 13 allied ships are finally sunk for the loss of six U-boats. A series of minor attacks by the Red Army near Novorossiysk, drives the Germans back slowly.
1944: The US Navy pounds the Japanese base at Truk, destroying 120 planes.
1945: Convoy RA-66 sailing from the Kola Peninsula to Loch Ewe is attacked by at least 2 U-boats north of Kola. The British destroyer HMS Goodall, which was lend-leased by the US in 1943 is sunk by U-286 (Oblt.z.S. Willi Dietrich), for 1,150 tons, marking this as the last convoy to come under attack in the war. The U.S. 7th Army liberates Dachau Concentration Camp. During the night Hitler marries Eva Braun, his mistress, writes a will and appoints Admiral Donitz as his successor. The 2nd Belorussian front advances fast in the Stralsund direction and seizes Anklam. In Berlin furious fighting takes place around the Reichstag, Chancellery and along Potsdamer Strasse. In Cottbus, South of Berlin, German troops are still holding the Russians back. The bodies of Mussolini and Clara Petacci are brought to Milan and hung upside down from lamp-posts in the square where 15 Partisans were executed a year ago. The bodies are shot and spat upon. The Germans armies in Italy sign surrender terms at The Royal Palace, Caserta, but German officers do not guarantee acceptance, the ceremony takes only 17 minutes. The British Eighth Army secures Venice and advances towards Trieste. The U.S. Fifth Army enters Milan and makes contact with the Eighth Army at Padua. The British Second Army crosses the Elbe near Hamburg, less than 100 miles west of the Russian forces in Mecklenburg. The U.S. Seventh Army reaches Munich. The French First Army captures Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance.

1814 - USS Peacock captures HMS Epervier
1898 - U.S. warships engage Spanish gunboats and shore batteries at Cienfuegos, Cuba
1944 - Fast carrier task force (12 carriers) commence 2 day bombing of Truk
1975 - Operation Frequent Wind evacuation from Vietnam begins
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesapr.htm

1944: Atlantic - German U-Boats sink Royal Canadian Navy destroyer HMCS Athabaskan off the coast of France. HMCS Haida drives flaming German warship aground.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=Apr&day=29

 

[tomtom22]

Viet Nam War formally over

April 30th

1941: After the surrender of the Greek Army (Mussolini insists on a separate surrender to the Italian forces), the German occupation of Greece is now complete, the Wehrmacht having taken 223,000 Greek and 22,000 British prisoners. In Cyrenaica, the Afrikakorps' second attempt to capture Tobruk fails.
1942: Hitler and Mussolini meet at Berchtesgaden to discuss future Axis strategy in North Africa and the Mediterranean, the main objectives being the reduction of Malta and the seizure of the Suez Canal.
1945: The battle of Berlin is reaching its bloody climax. Isolated pockets of German resistance throughout the city are overpowered and systematically destroyed. With Red Army infantry only a few hundred yards away, Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide at about 3:00 p.m., their bodies being immediately incinerated with gasoline by SS bodyguards. The US Seventh Army (Patch) enters Munich. The defenders of Breslau, decimated by relentless Soviet attacks, are still holding out.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/april.html


1941: Last evacuation ship leaves GreeceAustralian and New Zealand troops fought alongside soldiers from Greece and Britain in the ill-fated Greek campaign. General Blamey conducted a skillful evacuation of the ANZAC Corps from southern Greece at the end of the campaign.
1967: Royal Australian Regiment arrives in South Vietnam7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, arrives in South Vietnamsource: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/apr.htm

1941: Atlantic - German U-boat torpedoes Canadian passenger ship Nerissa off Ireland; 73 Canadian Army personnel lost.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=Apr&day=30

1943 - World War II: Operation Mincemeat – The submarine HMS Seraph surfaces in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man planted with false invasion plans and dressed as a British military intelligence officer.
1975 - Fall of Saigon: Communist forces gains control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South VietnamesepresidentDuong Van Minh.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_30

 

[tomtom22]

May 1st

1941: The Luftwaffe begins a series of 8 consecutive night raids against Liverpool.
1942: In the East, the siege of the Crimean fortress of Sevastopol by 11.Armee (von Manstein) continues with a ceaseless bombardment by batteries of heavy guns (up to 800mm: Big Dora) and hundreds of bombers (up to 1,000 sorties a day) of Luftflotte 7 (von Richthofen). Heavy fighting also continues on the front around besieged Leningrad whose inhabitants are suffering from bombing, disease and starvation.
1945: Cessation of hostilities and surrender of all German forces in Italy as a result of unauthorized secret negotiations with the Allies by the German C-in-C, General von Vietinghoff. and SS General Wolff. Grossadmiral Dönitz, following the death of Hitler, assumes his duties as the new German head of state. He orders utmost resistance on all fronts, especially in the East where tens of thousands of German civilians are still trying to escape from the stampeding Red Army. In the battle of Berlin, the remaining pockets of German resistance in the center of the city are crumbling. General Krebs, head of the OKH after Guderian's dismissal on March 26, begins negotiations with General Chuikov, CO of Eighth Guards Army, about the Soviet terms for a surrender. Goebbels and his wife, after poisoning their six children, commit suicide in the Führerbunker.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1898 - Battle of Manila Bay, Adm Dewey defeats Spanish at Manila, Philippines
1934 - LT Akers demonstrates blind landing system at College Park, MD in OJ-2 aircraft
1945 - VADM Barbey lands Australian troops on Tarakan Island, Borneo, supported by naval gunfire
1951 - USS Princeton aircraft attack Hwachon Dam using aerial torpedoes, only use of this weapon in Korean War
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1941: Allied evacuation of Greece complete - The Greek campaign, involving forces from Greece, Britain, New Zealand and Australia, resulted in heavy losses to the 6th Australian Division and ultimately an evacuation of Allied forces from beaches in southern Greece.

1942: Townsville put on invasion alert - We now know that Japan did not intend to invade Australia. In 1942, however, fear of such an invasion was almost universal, particularly after their early successes in the war.1945: 26 Brigade troops invade Tarakan - General MacArthur instructed Lieutenant-General Sir Leslie Morshead to seize and hold Tarakan Island and destroy the enemy forces there. The Netherlands East Indies Government was to be re-established, Tarakan's oil producing capacity was to be conserved and the island's airfields put into use. The operation was codenamed Oboe 1.source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/may.htm

1951: Korea - 25th Canadian Infantry Brigade Group sent to join United Nations forces in Korea.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=01

1328 - Wars of Scottish Independence end: Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton – England recognises Scotland as an independent nation.
1778 - American Revolution: The Battle of Crooked Billet begins in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.
1941 - World War II: German forces launch Operation Mercury the largest airborne invasion to date in their bid to capture Crete. German forces launch a major attack on Tobruk.
1945 - Soviet troops raise the Soviet Flag over the Reichstag, in Berlin.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1

 

[tomtom22]

May 2nd

1945: General Chuikov, defender of Stalingrad, meets with General Weidling and accepts the unconditional surrender of the surviving defenders of Berlin. Some units refuse to quit and try to break out to the West, but are annihilated in the attempt. Stalin announces the fall of Berlin in his Order of the Day No. 359.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1863 - American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson is wounded by friendly fire while returning to camp after reconnoitering for the Battle of Chancellorsville. He succumbs to pneumonia 8 days later.
1982 - Falklands War: The Britishnuclear submarineHMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2

1964: An explosion of a charge assumed to have been placed by Viet Cong terrorists sinks the USNS Card at its dock in Saigon. No one was injured and the ship was eventually raised and repaired. The Card, an escort carrier being used as an aircraft and helicopter ferry, had arrived in Saigon on April 30.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih

 

[tomtom22]

May 3rd

1942: Off the northern coast of Norway, German destroyers sink the British cruiser Edinburgh escorting Convoy PQ-15.
1945: The British Second Army (Dempsey) occupies Hamburg.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1861 - USS Surprise captures Confederate privateer Savannah
1898 - Marines land at Cavite, Philippines, and raise U.S. flag
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1917: Second attack on Bullecourt - Operations against the Hindenburg line at Bullecourt were aimed at protecting the British flank during operations at Arras. After an unsuccessful first attempt, a second involving the 2nd Australian Division was made. Once again the attack was unsuccessful costing about 7,000 allied casualties
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/may.htm

1945: Wismar Germany - First Canadian Army takes Oldenburg, and Canadian paratroopers link up with Russians in Wismar.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=03

1808 - Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russia.
1808 - Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are fired upon near Príncipe Pío hill.
1942 - Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that resulted in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.
1945 - World War II: Sinking of the floating-jails Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the RAF in Lübeck Bay.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_3

1915: During a 10-day-long stretch of fighting in the Carpathian Mountains on the Galician front in Austria-Hungary, a combined Austro-German force succeeds in defeating the Russian army near the Dunajec River (a tributary of the Vistula River that runs through modern-day northern Slovakia and southern Poland). The Austro-German counterattack in Galicia in early May 1915 decisively ended nine months of victorious Russian advances in the region since August 1914. Struggling, Austria-Hungary had appealed to its more powerful ally, and the German army had stepped in, moving large amounts of troops into the region in an attempt to break through the Russian lines between the crest of the Carpathians and the mid-section of the Dunajec. On May 1, 1915, the German commander General August von Mackensen led the combined troops into battle behind an artillery bombardment by 610 guns, the largest yet on the Eastern Front, against Russian positions stretching along a 40-kilometer front.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih.do?

 

[tomtom22]

May 4th

1943: Hitler postpones Operation Zitadelle, the powerful German counter-attack against the large Soviet bulge between Kursk and Belgorod, from May 9 to mid-June.
1944: The RAF carries out a night raid against Budapest.
1945: The German forces in northwestern Germany, Holland and Denmark surrender to the Allied 21st Army Group whose C-in-C, FM Montgomery, meets with a German delegation headed by Generaladmiral von Friedeburg at his HQ on Luneburg Heath 30 miles S of Hamburg. The British Second Army occupies Kiel. In the East, fierce fighting continues in Moravia, the Vistula delta and in Kurland.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1915:Australian attack on Gaba Tepe, Gallipoli - The attack on Gaba Tepe by men of the 11th Battalion was an ill-conceived venture to deny the Turks a vantage point from which they could observe operations around ANZAC Cove. The venture ended in failure.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1471 - Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Tewkesbury – Edward IV defeats a Lancastrian Army and kills Edward, Prince of Wales.
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Chancellorsville – The battle ends with a Union retreat.
1869 - The Naval Battle of Hakodate takes place in Japan.
1910 - The Royal Canadian Navy is created.
1945 - World War II: Liberation of the Neuengammeconcentration camp near Hamburg by the British Army.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_4

1864: Army of the Potomac moved out of its winter encampments and crossed the Rapidan River to the tangled woods of the Wilderness. Grant had with him four corps and over 100,000 men.
1916: Germany responds to a demand by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson by agreeing to limit its submarine warfare in order to avert a diplomatic break with the United States.
1945: Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov informs U.S. Secretary of State Stettinius that the Red Army has arrested 16 Polish peace negotiators who had met with a Soviet army colonel near Warsaw back in March. When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill learns of the Soviet double-cross, he reacts in alarm, stating, "There is no doubt that the publication in detail of this event...would produce a primary change in the entire structure of world forces."
source: http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/

1942: Akyab on the Burmese coast is abandoned by the British. The Japanese Port Moresby invasion force leaves Rabaul, in New Britain. With its naval support stripped away, the Japanese invasion fleet at Tulagi is attacked by aircraft from the American carrier Yorktown. 1 destroyer is disabled, while 3 minesweepers and 4 landing barges are sunk for the loss of just 3 US aircraft. Admiral Fletcher, now doubled back to meet up with the Lexington in the Coral Sea.
1943: Hitler decides to postpone Operation 'Citadel' in order that more Tiger and Panther tanks can be deployed in the offensive. This is against the advice of a number of leading Generals who fear that the Russian defenses will become too strong if the offensive is delayed any further.
1944: The British counter-attacks at Kohima, are repulsed by the Japanese. The RAF carries out a night raid against Budapest.
1945: SEAC announces that Rangoon was taken so quickly that the Japanese had no time to destroy the installations there. Kamikaze flyers sink 17 U.S. ships in 24 hours off Okinawa. Grand Admiral Dönitz, now the newly designated leader of the Reich, orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases (to go into effect fully at 0800 on 5th May) The U.S. Fifth Army reaches the Brenner Pass. Admiral von Friedeburg arrives at Montgomery’s HQ on Lüneburg Heath with German plenipotentiaries. At 8.15pm SHAEF announce that ‘Field Marshal Montgomery has reported to the supreme allied command that all enemy forces in Holland, Northwest Germany and Denmark, have surrendered. The U.S. Ninth Army breaks up the German Ninth and Twelfth Armies. The U.S. Seventh Army takes Innsbruck, Salzburg and Berchtesgarten, which is still smoking after an RAF raid. Field-Marshal von Kleist gives himself up to the U.S. Third Army near Straubing.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

1917 - First Navy ships, Destroyer Division 8, arrive at Queenstown, Ireland, to provide convoy escorts against German U-boats
1942 - Battle of Coral Sea, first carrier vs. carrier battle, begins
1945 - Japanese attempt to land on Okinawa repulsed; kamikaze attacks damage 6 U.S. Navy ships
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1945: Europe - Fighting stops in the Canadian sector near Wilhelmshaven, Aurich, and Emden; German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany agreed to surrender to Canadian commanders.
1951: Europe - National Defence forms 27th Canadian Infantry Brigade Group for service in Europe with NATO forces.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=04

 

[tomtom22]

May 5th

1943: British forces break through the defenses of 5.Panzerarmee (von Arnim) S of Tunis.
1945: Beginning of a civilian uprising in Prague which is aided by defecting units of the anti-Bolshevist Vlasov Army.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1915: Australians and New Zealanders on Cape Helles - The 2nd Australian Brigade and the New Zealand Brigade were redeployed from ANZAC Cove to Cape Helles to assist British and French troops in their attempts to capture the dominating heights known as Achi Baba.
1945: Germans surrender in Norway - Hitler's successor, Grand Admiral Dönitz, attempted, by piecemeal surrenders to the British and Americans, to give German forces on the Eastern Front time to escape westwards, away from the Russians.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/may.htm

1944 - USS Comfort is commissioned in San Pedro, CA; first ship to be manned jointly by Army and Navy personnel
1948 - VF-17A becomes first carrier qualified jet squadron (USS Saipan)
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1813: Fort Meigs Ohio - Major General Henry Proctor attacks 1,200 US reinforcements coming up to end 5 day siege of Americans under William Henry Harrison at Fort Meigs; 400 US soldiers killed, British losses number only 15 in this War of 1812 battle.
1814: Oswego New York - Commodore James Yeo leads a fleet with 1,100 men from Kingston against 500 US defenders of Fort Ontario; captures valuable supplies; destroys the American naval base and firmly fixes British control of Lake Ontario until the close of the War of 1812.
1945: Germany - German commanders surrender in Canadian sector near Wilhelmshaven, Aurich, and Emden.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=05

1862 - Cinco de Mayo in Mexico: Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla.
1864 - American Civil War: The Battle of the Wilderness begins in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_5

1970 : In Cambodia, a U.S. force captures Snoul, 20 miles from the tip of the "Fishhook" area (across the border from South Vietnam, 70 miles from Saigon). A squadron of nearly 100 tanks from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and jet planes virtually leveled the village that had been held by the North Vietnamese. No dead North Vietnamese soldiers were found, only the bodies of four Cambodian civilians. This action was part of the Cambodian "incursion" that had been launched by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces on April 29.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih

 

[tomtom22]

May 6th

1945: The US Third Army (Patton) occupies Pilsen in Bohemia and halts all further advances. After an 82-day siege, the remaining defenders of Breslau finally surrender to Soviet forces.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1909 - Great White Fleet anchors in San Francisco
1916 - First ship-to-shore radio telephone voice conversation from USS New Hampshire off Virginia Capes to SECNAV Josephus Daniels in Washington, DC
1942 - CAPT Milton Miles arrives in Chungking, China, to begin building an intelligence and guerilla training organization, Naval Group China
1945 - Naval landing force evacuates 500 Marshallese from Jaluit Atoll, Marshall Islands.
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1917: Corporal G.J. Howell, VC - Corporal G.J. Howell, 1st Battalion, originally of Enfield, NSW, wins the Victoria Cross near Bullecourt.
1945: Tarakan town and airstrip captured - General MacArthur instructed Lieutenant General Sir Leslie Morshead to seize and hold Tarakan Island and destroy the enemy forces there. The Netherlands East Indies Government was to be re-established, Tarakan's oil producing capacity was to be conserved and the island's airfields put into use. The operation was codenamed Oboe 1.source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/may.htm

1777: Quebec Quebec - British General John (Gentleman Johnny) Burgoyne arrives in Quebec as field commander of the British forces against the American rebels; his plan is to march down the Hudson River via the Richelieu River and Lake Champlain through Albany, with a secondary advance through the Mohawk Valley, and divide the rebels at New York.
1877: Wood Mountain Saskatchewan - Sioux Chief Sitting Bull leads 1,500 of his followers into Canada to ask protection from the Queen; after defeating General George Custer and the US 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=06

1527 - Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. 147 Swiss Guards, including their commander, died fighting the forces of Charles V during the Sack of Rome in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape into Castel Sant'Angelo.
1757 - Battle of Prague - A Prussian army fought an Austrian army in Prague during the Seven Years' War.
1942 - On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.
1945 - Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (first was on December 11, 1941).
1945 - The Prague Offensive, the last major battle of the Eastern Front, begins.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_6

1915: After a first attempt to capture the village of Krithia, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, failed on April 28, 1915, a second is initiated on May 6 by Allied troops under the British commander Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston. Fortified by 105 pieces of heavy artillery, the Allied force advanced on Krithia, located at the base of the flat-topped hill of Achi Baba, starting at noon on May 6. The attack was launched from a beach head on Cape Helles, where troops had landed on April 25 to begin the large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula after a naval attack on the Dardanelles failed miserably in mid-March. Since the first failed attempt on the village, Hunter-Weston’s original force had been joined by two brigades of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) to bring the total number of men to 25,000. They were still outnumbered, however, by the Turkish forces guarding Krithia, which were under the direct command of the German Major-General Erich Weber. Weber had been promoted from the rank of colonel after supervising the closure and mining of the Dardanelles six months earlier.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=5/6&categoryId=worldwari

 

[tomtom22]

May 7th

1941: The Luftwaffe launches the first of two consecutive night raids against the British port of Hull.
1943: 5.Panzerarmee evacuates Tunis and Bizerta.
1944: The US 8th Air Force (Doolittle) launches a 1,500-bomber raid against Berlin. In the East, the Red Army recaptures Sevastopol in the Crimea.
1945: This day marks the end of hostilities between the Wehrmacht and the Allied armies in Europe. At 2:41 a.m. CET, Generaloberst Jodl signs the instrument of unconditional surrender of all German forces in a schoolroom at Rheims, France, to be effective at noon the following day. Off the Firth of Forth, U-2336 sinks the last Allied ships of the war, the coastal vessels Sneland and Avondale Park, while an RAF Catalina sinks U-320, the last German submarine destroyed in WWII, near Bergen off the coast of Norway.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1429 - Joan of Arc ends the Siege of Orléans, pulling an arrow from her own shoulder and returning wounded to lead the final charge. The victory marks a turning point in the Hundred Years' War.
1937 - Spanish Civil War: The German Condor Legion, equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes, arrive in Spain to assist Franco's forces.
1954 - Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat (the battle began on March 13).
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_7

1915: German submarine sinks Lusitania - The earlier German attacks on merchant ships off the south coast of Ireland prompted the British Admiralty to warn the Lusitania to avoid the area or take simple evasive action, such as zigzagging to confuse U-boats plotting the vessel's course. The captain of the Lusitania ignored these recommendations, and at 2:12 p.m. on May 7, in the waters of the Celtic Sea, the 32,000-ton ship was hit by an exploding torpedo on its starboard side. The torpedo blast was followed by a larger explosion, probably of the ship's boilers. The Lusitania sank within 20 minutes.

1944: Atlantic - German U-boats sink RCN frigate HMCS Valleyfield.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=07

1779 - Continental Navy sloop Providence captures British brig Diligent off Cape Charles
1934 - USS Constitution completes tour of principal U.S. ports
1940 - FDR orders Pacific Fleet to remain in Hawaiian waters indefinitely
1942 - Carrier aircraft sink Japanese carrier Shoho during Battle of Coral Sea
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1941: The Luftwaffe launches the first of two consecutive night raids against the British port of Hull.
1942: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins, as the Japanese Striking Force (Admiral Inouye), which consists of the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku, 2 cruisers and 6 destroyers make the first strike. This is against the oiler Neosho and her escorting destroyer, which are on their way to rendezvous with Admiral Fletchers Task Force 17, which includes the carriers Yorktown and Lexington, 8 cruisers and 11 destroyers. The Neosho takes serious damage and eventually has to be scuttled. Admiral Fletcher then orders a cruiser squadron consisting of HMAS Australia, Hobart, USN Chicago and 2 destroyers to attack the Port Moresby invasion force, but this soon comes under Japanese air attack, although it did divert Japanese attention away from the American carriers. At the same time, Admiral Inouye orders the Invasion Force to turn away from the Jomard Passage until the American carriers have been dealt with. Admiral Fletcher now launched a strike from the Yorktown against what he thought was a major Japanese task force, but which turned out to be only 2 light cruisers and 2 gunboats. However, aircraft from the Lexington spotted the Japanese carrier Shoho and sank her. Later that afternoon the Japanese launched 27 aircraft against the US carrier Task Force, but they failed to locate their targets and only 6 returned safely. At midnight, Admiral Inouye decided to postpone the invasion of Port Moresby for two days. Vichy French resistance ends in Madagascar.
1943: Tunis falls to British First Army. In a speech to Nazi Party Reichsleiters and Gauleiters in Berlin, Hitler says tht U-boat warfare will be stepped up as the surest way to "cut the arteries of the enemy." Even as the Fuhrer speaks, however, the calamity of "Black May" for the U-boat force is unfolding in the Atlantic.
1944: 300,000 Japanese troops begin their preliminary moves prior to an offensive from the Canton and Hankow area in eastern China, with the aim of capturing allied airfields. The US 8th Air Force launches a 1,500-bomber raid against Berlin.
1945: General Böhne announces the unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway. The British Eighth Army crosses the Italian/Austrian border. British troops enter Utrecht to a tumultuous reception.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

 

[tomtom22]

May 8th

1941: The German raider Pinguin is sunk by HMS Cornwall off the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean.
1945: VE-DAY (Victory-in-Europe Day). - In deference to the Soviet victors, the surrender ceremony at Rheims of the previous day is repeated before Marshall Zhukov and other Soviet generals at Karlshorst, a suburb of Berlin. The last convoys of German refugees from the East arrive in western Baltic ports, ending the largest rescue operation by sea in history. Since January 25, a total of 420,000 civilians and wounded soldiers have been evacuated - besides the U-boat campaign, it is the Kriegsmarine's most memorable feat of WWII. The remnants of AOK Ostpreussen have held their positions in the Vistula delta and the Frische Nehrung to the last. In recognition of their valor, their commander, General der Panzertruppen von Saucken, is awarded the Diamonds to the Knight's Cross by Grossadmiral Dönitz.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1915:Battle of Krithia - The Australian 2nd Brigade and New Zealand Brigade took part in this predominantly French and British battle against the Turks on Cape Helles. None of the objectives set for the allies during the battle were achieved.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/may.htm

1821 - Greek War of Independence: The Greeks defeat the Turks in Gravia.
1846 - Mexican-American War: The Battle of Palo Alto – Zachary Taylor defeats a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande in the first major battle of the war.
1942 - World War II: Gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebelled in the Cocos Islands Mutiny. Their mutiny was crushed and three of them were executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_8

 

[tomtom22]

May 9th

1940: Hitler orders Fall Gelb (Operation Yellow), the great offensive in the West, to begin at 5:35 a.m. the next day. The French submarine Doris is sunk by U-9 (Oblt. Lüth) off the Dutch coast.
1941: The Luftwaffe launches a massive night raid (507 bombers) against London which causes many fires and cripples the rail system in the city, while the RAF attacks Hamburg with little effect. U-110 is forced to the surface by depth-charges of HMS Aubretia; a top-secret Enigma cipher machine is recovered before she sinks while being towed.
1942: In the East, the Red Army launches a counter-offensive toward Charkov.
1944: Allied air forces begin a campaign of large scale raids against German airfields and rail communications in France in preparation for D-Day.
1945: German forces in Kurland, the Greek islands and the still undefeated garrisons of St. Nazaire, La Rochelle, Lorient, La Pallice and the British Channel Islands surrender.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1943oint Stuart bombed - Point Stuart, Northern Territory, bombed by Japanese aircraft for the 1st time.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1915 - World War I: Second Battle of Artois between German and French forces.
1920 - Polish-Soviet War: The Polish army under General Edward Rydz-Śmigły celebrated their capture of Kiev with a victory parade on Khreschatyk.
1942 - Belgrade becomes the first Axis-conquered city to murder or eliminate its Jewish Population, largely with the help of Serbian collaborators.
1945 - The final German surrender to Marshal Georgy Zhukov at Berlin-Karlshorst is signed by Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff as the representative of the Luftwaffe, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel as the Chief of Staff of OKW, and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg as Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine. Vidkun Quisling is arrested in Norway. Red Army enters Prague (capitulation of Nazi occupation troops). The Soviet Union marks Victory Day.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_9

1915: Festubert France - First Canadian Division sees action at Festubert.
1916: England - General Julian Hedworth George Byng, Lord Byng of Vimy 1862-1935 appointed commander of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Europe; succeeding General Alderson; takes post May 28; Byng will wisely leave the detailed soldiering to Canadian commander Arthur Currie.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=09

1940: Hitler orders 'Operation Yellow', the great offensive in the West, to begin at 5.35am the next day.
1941: A peace treaty is signed between Vichy France and Thailand, which cedes back portions of Indochina that had been lost by Thailand 40 years earlier. A British Brigade sized column (Habforce), moves across the Iraqi border from Palastine. Liverpool has its 7th consecutive night air raid. Belfast, Clydeside and Humberside also suffer in a heavy week of raids. The RAF attacks Bremen and Hamburg, but with little effect.
1942: Another 60 Spitfires are landed in Malta by the aircraft carriers USN Wasp and HMS Eagle.
1943: The unconditional surrender of all axis troops in Tunisia takes place at 11am.
1944: Allied air forces begin a campaign of large scale raids against German airfields and rail communications in France in preparation for D-Day. The Russians capture Sevastopol as Hitler finally changes his mind and orders evacuation of the city.
1945: A British naval squadron arrives in Copenhagen harbour to receive the surrender of the remains of German fleet. Stalin announces the end of war. German forces of Army Group Kurland surrender. German forces in the Greek islands surrender. The German garrisons at Lorient, St Nazaire and La Rochelle on the French Atlantic Coast finally surrender. Reich Marshal Goring and his wife, children and staff, surrender to Brigadier General Stack, of the U.S. 36th Division, near Salzburg. Field Marshal Kesselring, C-in-C West, is captured by U.S. troops at the village of Saalfelden, in western Austria. The German garrison in the Channel Islands agree to surrender to British troops after five years of occupation. The surrender terms are signed aboard the destroyer HMS Bulldog, which is moored off St. Hellier.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

 

[tomtom22]

May 10th

1940: At 5:35 a.m. CET, the Wehrmacht begins Operation Yellow, the invasion of Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg, employing Heeresgruppe A (von Rundstedt) and B (von Bock), with Heeresgruppe C (von Leeb) in reserve. The attacking forces comprise 10 armored, 5 motorized, and 75 infantry divisions. The 3 Panzerkorps - XIX. (Guderian), XX. (Hoth) and XLI. (Reinhardt) - field 2,445 tanks, most of which are of the light Marks I, II, 35(t) and 38(t) type, against 3,373 French and British tanks. Airborne troops seize airfields and strategic bridges near Amsterdam and Rotterdam in Holland. The Luftwaffe, using hundreds of level and dive bombers, attacks Allied airfields, troop assembly areas and rear communications.
1941: Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy and former WWI fighter pilot, flies from Augsburg to Scotland to persuade anti-Churchill politicians that England should stop the war with Germany, adopt a neutral attitude and allow Germany to eliminate the Bolshevik menace and gain Lebensraum in the East.
1945: The Red Army occupies Prague.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1900: Zand River -New South Wales Mounted Rifles in action at Zand River, South Africa
1943: Point Stuart bombed -Point Stuart, Northern Territory, bombed by Japanese aircraft for the 2nd time.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1796 - First Coalition: Napoleon I of France wins a decisive victory against Austrian forces at Lodi bridge over the River Adda in Italy. The Austrians lose some 2,000 men. 1801 - The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States.
1864 - ColonelEmory Upton leads a 10-regiment "Attack-in-depth" assault against the Confederate works at The Battle of Spotsylvania.
1940 - The first German bombs of the war fall on England at Chilham and Petham, in Kent.
1969 - The Battle of Dong Ap Bia begins with an assault on Hill 937. It will ultimately become known as Hamburger Hill.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_10

1972: Intense air war continues over North Vietnam - President Richard Nixon's decision to mine North Vietnamese harbors is condemned by the Soviet Union, China, and their Eastern European allies, and receives only lukewarm support from Western Europe. In the continuing air war over North Vietnam, the United States lost at least three planes and the North Vietnamese 10, as 150 to 175 American planes struck targets over Hanoi, Haiphong, and along rail lines leading from China. Lt. Randy Cunningham and Lt. Willie Driscoll, flying a Navy F-4J Phantom from the USS Constellation knocked down three MiGs in one combat mission. This made Cunningham and Driscoll the first American aces of the Vietnam War.
source: http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?

1775 - Force under Ethan Allan and Benedict Arnold cross Lake Champlain and capture British fort at Ticonderoga, New York.
1800 - USS Constitution captures Letter of Marque Sandwich.
1862 - Confederates destroy Norfolk and Pensacola Navy Yards.
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1941: The Luftwaffe launches a massive attack against London, the heaviest so far received by the capital. A record 1,436 people are killed and 1,792 are seriously injured.
1942: General William Sharp, commanding the Central Philippines orders the surrender of the remaining US and Filipino forces to the Japanese, thus ending resistance throughout the whole of the Philippines. Winston Churchill warns that Britain will use poison gas on Germany if the Germans do so on the Soviet Union. The battle for Sevastopol rumbles on, with the Russian Coastal Army fielding 106,000 men, 600 guns, 100 mortars, 38 tanks, and 55 planes. The Germans hurl 204,000 men, 670 guns, 450 mortars, 720 tanks, and 600 aircraft at Sevastopol. The Germans also move in 19 motor torpedo boats, 30 patrol boats, eight ASW boats, and a unit of 150 bombers trained in anti-shipping operations. German artillery ranges from 76mm field guns to mammoth 800-mm railway-mounted super-heavy siege mortars. Kesselring declares that Malta has been neutralised. However, that same day the Axis airforces found themselves outnumbered for the first time in the sky over Malta, losing 12 aircraft in return for 3 RAF Spitfires. This marked a definite turning point in the fortunes of Malta with Axis air activity slackening noticeably as aircraft were drawn off to Russia.
1943: The British First Army reaches Hammamet.
1945: The Fourteenth Army moves South in central Burma and links up with troops from Arakan in the west, trapping all Japanese to the west of the river Irrawaddy. The first U-boat to surrender, U-249 puts in at Portland. Russians troops are now in control of Prague after five days of fierce street fighting between German troops and Czech Partisans comes to an end, during which 5,000 civilians have been killed.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

 

[tomtom22]

May 11th

1940: In the West, German troops occupy the Duchy of Luxemburg. A glider-borne parachute detachment of 1.Fallschirmjäger-Rgt. led by Hptm. Koch and Lt. Witzig capture the "impregnable" Belgian border fortress of Eben-Emael.
1941: German troops complete the ocupation of the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.
1944: In Italy, the US Fifth (Clark) and the British Eighth Armies begin an offensive against the Gustav Line at Cassino.
1945: The Red Army launches a final assault against the remnants of Heeresgruppe Mitte (Schörner) still holding out in Moravia.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1945: Wewak captured - Wewak was captured by the 6th Division in a combined land and amphibious operation. Its capture marked the beginning of the end of the Aitape Wewak campaign, the last major campaign on mainland New Guinea in the Second World War.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1745 - War of Austrian Succession: Battle of Fontenoy – At Fontenoy, French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Yellow Tavern – Confederate General JEB Stuart is mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, Virginia.
1943 - World War II: American troops invade Attu in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_11

1942: Anticosti Quebec -German submarine U-S53 torpedoes British steamer Nicoya and Dutch ship Leno near Anticosti Island; Battle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence begins between the Royal Canadian Navy and German U-Boats.
1944: Cassino Italy - Canadian tanks see action near Monte Cassino as Allies launch major offensive south of Rome.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=11

1689 : Battle of Bantry Bay, French & English naval battle
1690 : English troops of W Phips conquer Port Royal Nova Scotia
source: http://www.thisdaythatyear.com/may/events11.htm

1961: President Kennedy approves sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100 other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam. On the same day, he orders the start of clandestine warfare against North Vietnam to be conducted by South Vietnamese agents under the direction and training of the CIA and U.S. Special Forces troops. Kennedy's orders also called for South Vietnamese forces to infiltrate Laos to locate and disrupt communist bases and supply lines there.
source: http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?

1940: Allied troops land in Dutch West Indies.
1941: The RAF launches a heavy raid against Hamburg.
1942: British retreat across Chindwin completed. The Luftwaffe sinks three British destroyers, Lively, Kipling and Jackal to the South of Crete. German troops continue their attack at Sevastopol, surrounding some defenders at Ak-Monay. The Luftwaffe is making about 1,800 sorties per day.
1943: The British evacuate Maumgdaw before the monsoon arrives in the Arakan. All ground gained since September 1942 for the loss of 5,000 battle casualties is lost.
1944: 72,000 Chinese begin an advance along the Burma Road.
1945: In a new offensive, the U.S. Tenth Army reaches the suburbs of Naha, the capital of Okinawa. The Red Army launches a final assault against the remnants of Army Group Centre, which is still holding out in Moravia. The German garrison at Dunkirk surrenders to Czech troops.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

 

[tomtom22]

May 12th

1940: In the West, French forces withdraw behind the Meuse river between Dinant and Sedan.
1942: The first aircraft of the US 8th Air Force arrive in Britain.
1943: Surrender of all German and Italian forces in Tunisia (130,000 German and 120,000 Italian prisoners), marking the end of the three-year North African campaign.
1944: In Italy, fierce German counter-attacks along the Gustav Line at Cassino. The US 8th Air Force (800 bombers) carries out attacks against the synthetic fuel plants at Leuna-Merseburg, Lützkendorf, Zeitz and Brüx.
1945: General Vlasov, commander of the anti-Bolshevist Russian Liberation Army (ROA) is handed over by the Americans to the Soviets to be tortured and executed for treason in August, 1946.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1917: Lieutenant R.V. Moon, VC - Lieutenant R.V. Moon, 58th Battalion, of Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, wins the Victoria Cross at Bullecourt
1945: Corporal J.B. Mackey, VC - Corporal J.B. Mackey, 2/3rd Pioneer Battalion, originally from Leichhardt, Sydney, wins the Victoria Cross on Tarakan. (Posthumous award)
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1264 - The Battle of Lewes, between King Henry III of England and the rebel Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, begins.
1588 - French Wars of Religion: Henry III of France flees Paris after Henry of Guise enters the city.
1689 - King William's War: William III of England joins the League of Augsburg starting a war with France.
1780 - American Revolutionary War: Charleston, South Carolina is taken by British forces.
1862 - U.S. federal troops occupy Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
1864 - Battle of Spotsylvania Court House: Thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers die in "the Bloody Angle".
1942 - Second Battle of Kharkov – In the eastern Ukraine, the Soviet Army initiates a major offensive. During the battle the Soviets will capture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_12

1082 : Battle at Mailberg: Vratislav II of Bohemia beats Leopold II of Austria
source: http://www.thisdaythatyear.com/may/events12.htm

1780 - Fall of Charleston, SC; three Continental Navy frigates (Boston, Providence, and Ranger) captured; and one American frigate (Queen of France) sunk to prevent capture
1846 - U.S. declares war against Mexico
1975 - SS Mayaguez seized by Khmer Rouge and escorted to Koh Tang Island.
1986 - Destroyer USS David R. Ray deters an Iranian Navy attempt to board a U.S. merchant ship.
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1940: French forces withdraw behind the Meuse river between Dinant and Sedan as advance German panzer columns push out from the Ardennes. Germans troops continue their advance through Holland, crossing the Yssel and Meuse rivers at several points. Massive German artillery bombardments are maintained on western front, the Luftwaffe continues to reek havoc across Northern France and Belgium, causing refugees to stream west, clogging the roads for allied forces. Internment of Germans begins in Britain.
1942: A British convoy, codenamed 'Tiger', arrives at Alexandria with much needed tanks and aircraft. Timoshenko’s offensive grinds forward into Army Group South with two pincer attacks, one Northwest out of the Izyum bulge by the 6th Red Army and the other West then Southwest by the 28th Red Army from the Volchansk area, designed to converge west of Kharkov. The Red Army falls back towards Kerch in the Crimea.
1944: The Japanese attacks to the South East of Imphal are broken off. 800 bombers of the US 8th Air Force carry out attacks against the synthetic fuel plants at Leuna-Merseburg, Lützkendorf, Zeitz and Brüx. The remains of German Seventeenth Army in Crimea are destroyed, with the Russians taking 36,000 Axis troops prisoner. Fierce German counter-attacks are put in by the German defenders at Monte Cassino.
1945: Very heavy fighting continues on Okinawa, with 125 Japanese aircraft being reported as shot down. The German garrison in Crete under Major General Bentach surrenders.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

 

[tomtom22]

May 13th

1940: Supported by waves of Luftwaffe Stuka dive-bombers, the two German Panzerkorps of Heeresgruppe B emerge from the Ardennes forests, advance to the Meuse and establish bridgeheads across the river, tearing a 50-mile gap in the French defenses between Dinant and Sedan. 7.Pz.Div. (Rommel) is the first division across. In the House of Commons, the new prime minister Churchill promises nothing but "blood, toil, tears and sweat."
1941: German aircraft are reported operating over Iraq in support of the rebellion by anti-British Iraqi forces.
1944: In the East, German troops of Heeresgruppe Ukraine belatedly complete the evacuation of the Crimea, suffering heavy casualties and leaving behind large quantities of heavy equipment.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1943: Axis forces surrender in Tunisia - The surrender of Axis forces in Tunisia meant the end of the three-year-long North African campaign.
1968: Fire support base Coral attacked - The partly-constructed base, north of Saigon, was defended by elements of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, when it was attacked by North Vietnamese troops. Eleven Australians were killed and 28 wounded before the attackers were driven back.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1568 - Battle of Langside: the forces of Mary Queen of Scots are defeated by a confederacy of ScottishProtestants under James Stewart, Earl of Moray, her half-brother.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Resaca – the battle begins with UnionGeneralSherman fighting toward Atlanta.
1865 - American Civil War: Battle of Palmito Ranch – In far south Texas, more than a month after ConfederateGeneralLee's surrender, the last land battle of the Civil War ends with a Confederate victory.
1940 - Germany's conquest of France begins as the German army crosses the Meuse River. Churchill makes his "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_13

1908 - Navy Nurse Corps established.
1908 - Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, later called Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, was officially established in the Territory of Hawaii as a coaling station for U.S. Navy ships transiting the Pacific Ocean.
1943 - Bureau of Navigation renamed Bureau of Naval Personnel
1945 - Aircraft from fast carrier task force begin 2-day attack on Kyushu airfields, Japan
1964 - Organization and deployment of world's first all nuclear-powered task group, USS Enterprise, USS Long Beach, and USS Bainbridge, to Sixth Fleet.
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

 

[tomtom22]

May 14th

1940: In the West, 60 Luftwaffe He-111 bombers not having received the countermanding order attack besieged Rotterdam, devastating the center of the city. British and French aircraft are unsuccessful in destroying the German-built bridges across the Meuse; 50 bombers are shot down by AA fire.
1942: The damaged British escort cruiser Trinidad returning from Murmansk is sunk by Luftwaffe dive-bombers off the northern Norwegian coast.
1943: The US 8th Air Force attacks Kiel with 125 aircraft, destroying 3 U-boats in the harbor.
1944: The Red Army recaptures Tarnopol in the Ukraine.
1945: British troops ocupy the German island of Heligoland in the North Sea.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1943: Centaur sunk - The hospital ship Centaur was sunk by a Japanese submarine off the south Queensland coast. Only 64 of the 333 on board survived.
1956: Sungei Siput, Malaya - 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, attacks communist terrorists near Sungai Siput, Malaya.source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1264 - Battle of Lewes: Henry III of England is captured in France making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
1509 - Battle of Agnadello: In northern Italy, French forces defeat the Venetians.
1747 - A British fleet under AdmiralGeorge Anson defeats the French at first battle of Cape Finisterre.
1940 - World War II: Rotterdam is bombed by the GermanLuftwaffe. The Netherlands surrender to Germany.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_14

1801 - Tripoli declares war against the United States
1836 - U.S. Exploring Expedition authorized to conduct exploration of Pacific Ocean and South Seas, first major scientific expedition overseas. LT Charles Wilkes USN, would lead the expedition in surveying South America, Antarctica, Far East, and North Pacific.
1845 - First U.S. warship visits Vietnam. While anchored in Danang for reprovisioning, CAPT John Percival commanding USS Constitution, conducts a show of force against Vietnamese authorities in an effort to obtain the release of a French priest held prisoner by Emperor of Annam at Hue.
1975 - Marines recapture Mayaguez, go ashore on Koh Tang Island and release the crew.
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1943: U.S. and Great Britain chiefs of staff, meeting in Washington, D.C., approve and plot out Operation Pointblank, a joint bombing offensive to be mounted from British airbases. Operation Pointblank's aim was grandiose and comprehensive: "The progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people." It was also intended to set up "final combined operations on the continent." In other words, it was intended to set the stage for one fatal blow that would bring Germany to its knees. The immediate targets of Operation Pointblank were to be submarine construction yards and bases, aircraft factories, ball bearing factories, rubber and tire factories, oil production and storage plants, and military transport-vehicle factories and stores. Ironically, the very day planning for Pointblank began in Washington, the Germans shot down 74 British four-engine bombers as the Brits struck a munitions factory near Pilsen. Joseph Goebbels, writing in his diary, recorded that the biggest setback about the British raid on the factory was that the drafting room was destroyed.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih.do?

 

[tomtom22]

May 15th

1940: In the West, the German XX.Panzerkorps (Hoth) repels a counter-attack by French armored forces, destroying 125 out of 175 tanks. An attack by 6.Armee against the Dyle line in Belgium is repulsed. After the fall of Rotterdam the Dutch Army surrenders. RAF Bomber Command begins a strategic air offensive against targets inside Germany by attacking industrial installations in the Ruhr, but with minimal effect.
1941: In Libya, the British Eighth Army begins an offensive against the German Afrikakorps, recapturing Halfaya Pass and Sollum.
1942: In the East, the German 11.Armee captures Kerch in the eastern Crimea, forcing the Soviet forces to withdraw across the straits to the Taman peninsula. At Charkov, the German 6.Armee repulses heavy Soviet attacks.
1943: German, Italian and Croatian forces begin an offensive against Tito's partisan army in Montenegro.
1944: In Italy, German troops begin withdrawing from the Gustav Line to new positions, the Adolf Hitler or Dora Line, 30 miles S of Rome.
1945: The Axis-allied Croation forces that surrendered to British troops in Austria are handed over to Tito's partisans who without delay proceed to massacre them; they kill a total of 110,000, including women and children.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1915: Major General W.T. Bridges commander of the First Division, AIF, died on 18 May while being taken to Egypt for treatment. His body was returned to Australia and buried overlooking the Royal Military College, Duntroon.
1942: Movement of prisoners of war (A Force) to Thailand from Singapore begins for work on the Burma–Thailand railway
1945: Private E. Kenna, 2/4th Battalion, originally from Hamilton, Victoria, wins the Victoria Cross near Wewak.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1525 - The battle of Frankenhausen ends the Peasants' War.
1701 - The War of the Spanish Succession begins.
1864 - Battle of New Market, Virginia – Students from the Virginia Military Institute fight alongside the Confederate Army to force UnionGeneralFranz Sigel out of the Shenandoah Valley.
1897 - The Greek army retreats with heavy losses in Greco-Turkish War
1918 - Finnish Civil War ends.
1948 - Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia attack Israel.
1988 - Soviet war in Afghanistan: After more than eight years of fighting, the Red Army begins its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_15

1800 - CAPT Preble in Essex arrives in Batavia, Java, to escort U.S. merchant ships
1942 - First Naval Air Transport Service flight across Pacific
1969 - Sinking of USS Guitarro (SSN-665)
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1781: A 352-man-strong Loyalist force commanded by Major Andrew Maxwell surrenders a fortified frame building, named “Fort Granby,” to a Patriot force in South Carolina.
1967: U.S. forces just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) come under heavy fire as Marine positions between Dong Ha and Con Thien are pounded by North Vietnamese artillery. On May 18, a force of 5,500 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops invaded the southeastern section of the DMZ to smash a communist build up in the area and to deny the use of the zone as an infiltration route into South Vietnam.
1970: At the White House, President Richard Nixon presents Sgt. John L. Levitow with the Medal of Honor for heroic action performed on February 24, 1969, over Long Binh Army Post in South Vietnam. He was the only enlisted airman to win the Medal of Honor in Vietnam and was one of only four enlisted airmen ever to win the medal, the first since World War II.
source: http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?

1885: Regina Saskatchewan - Louis Riel surrenders to Middleton's troops; North West Rebellion ends after 100 days; 80 killed on each side
1756: London England - England declares war on France to start the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), the European counterpart to the French and Indian War.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=15

1940: RAF Bomber Command (Peirse) begins a strategic air offensive against targets inside Germany by attacking industrial installations in the Ruhr, but with minimal effect. After the fall of Rotterdam, Holland surrenders. The German 20th Panzer Korps (Hoth) repels a counter-attack by French armoured forces, destroying 125 out of 175 tanks. An attack by 6th Army (von Reichenau) against the Dyle line in Belgium is repulsed.
1941: The British Army under Auchinleck, launch an offensive, operation 'Brevity' against the Afrika Korps and manage to recapture Halfaya Pass, Sollum and Capuzzo. RAF night raids on Hanover, Berlin and Cuxhaven. The Luftwaffe begin preparatory attacks against Crete.
1942: British forces retreating from Burma reach the Indian frontier. General Stilwell crosses the border in to Assam in India.
1944: A Japanese attack on Hunter’s Hill, North of Kohima is repulsed.
1945: The U.S. Tenth Army is now within 2,000 yds of Naha docks.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

 

[tomtom22]

May 16th

1940: Troops of the German 6.Armee break through the Allied Dyle line in Belgium.
1941: With a raid by 111 German aircraft on Birmingham, the Night Blitz campaign against England comes to an end. Most Luftwaffe bomber formations in France and Belgium are being transferred to airfields in eastern Germany and occupied Poland.
1943: The uprising in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw is brought to a bloody end by German police and SS units.
1944: Aircraft of RAF Coastal Command sink 5 U-boats off the Norwegian coast.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1760: Quebec Quebec - François, Duc de Lévis abandons siege of Quebec when a British fleet commanded by Robert Swanton (d.1765) approaches up the St. Lawrence.
1943: Mohne Germany - British and Canadian Lancaster pilots of the Dambusters Squadron succeed in breaching the Mohne and the Eder dams in Germany's industrial Ruhr basin using a bouncing bomb dropped at low level; only 8 of the 17 planes return; 13 of the 53 dead are Canadians.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=16

1901: Lieutenant F.W. Bell, VC - Lieutenant F.W. Bell, 6th West Australian Mounted Infantry, of Perth, Western Australia, wins the Victoria Cross at Brakpan, South Africa.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/may.htm

1771 - The Battle of Alamance, a pre-American Revolutionary War battle between local militia and a group of rebels called "The Regulators" occurs in present-day Alamance County, North Carolina.
1811 - Peninsular War - Allies (Spain, Portugal & Britain) defeat French at the Battle of Albuera.
1822 - Greek War of Independence: The Turks capture the Greek town of Souli.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_17

1820 - Congress becomes first U.S. warship to visit China
1919 - Three Navy flying boats begin 1st trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland
1965 - First US gunfire support in Vietnam by USS Tucker
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm