44-11-10 Explosion of USS Mount Hood

Explosion of USS Mount Hood, November 10, 1944 - HiGu > .

The ammunition ship USS Mount Hood was responsible for supplying ammunition to hundreds of ships from the United States Third Fleet in Seeadler Harbor. On November 10, 1944, something went terribly wrong. The story reminds us that the sailors on support vessels risked their lives in the World War II effort.

Seeadler Harbor, also known as Port Seeadler, is located on Manus Island, Admiralty Islands, Papua New Guinea and played an important role in World War II. In German, "Seeadler" means sea eagle, pointing to German colonial activity between 1884 and 1919 in that area. The bay was named in 1900 after the German cruiser SMS Seeadler. 

On 29 February 1944, General Douglas MacArthur led Operation Brewer to take the islands from the Japanese who had occupied them beginning in 1942. The islands were secured by the Americans on 19 March 1944, who then built a large base at Seeadler Harbor including wharves and an airbase. This base served as a staging area for further World War II operations in New Guinea and the Philippines.

USS Mount Hood exploded accidentally while moored in Seeadler Harbor on 10 November 1944. The ship was carrying ammunition and the tremendous explosion caused 432 fatalities, 371 wounded, damage to surrounding ships and base from debris and sinking or severely damaging 22 smaller craft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeadler_Harbor .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiralty_Islands_campaign#Securing_Seeadler_Harbour .

44-12-31 Unternehmen Nordwind 45-1-25

Panther vs Sherman - Operation Nordwind 1945 > .

Western Front 1944-45: 1/2 - Animated History > .

Western Front 1944-45: 2/2 | Animated History > . 

Operation Nordwind (Unternehmen Nordwind) was the last major German offensive of WW2 on the Western Front. It began on 31 December 1944 in Rhineland-Palatinate, Alsace and Lorraine in southwestern Germany and northeastern France, and ended on 25 January 1945.

In a briefing at his military command complex at Adlerhorst, Adolf Hitler declared in his speech to his division commanders on 28 December 1944 (three days prior to the launch of Operation Nordwind): "This attack has a very clear objective, namely the destruction of the enemy forces. There is not a matter of prestige involved here. It is a matter of destroying and exterminating the enemy forces wherever we find them."

The goal of the offensive was to break through the lines of the U.S. Seventh Army and French 1st Army in the Upper Vosges mountains and the Alsatian Plain, and destroy them, as well as the seizure of Strasbourg, which Himmler had promised would be captured by 30 January. This would leave the way open for Operation Dentist (Unternehmen Zahnarzt), a planned major thrust into the rear of the U.S. Third Army which would lead to the destruction of that army.

44-8-23 King Michael of Romania ~ Ion Antonescu

23rd August 1944: King Michael of Romania leads a coup d'etat against against Ion Antonescu > .  

44-8-14 Unternehmen Greif 44-12-17

SS Commandos - Ardennes 1944 > .

Operation Greif (Unternehmen Greif) was a special operation commanded by Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny during the battle of the Bulge in World War II. The operation was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler, and its purpose was to capture one or more of the bridges over the Meuse river before they could be destroyed. German soldiers, wearing captured British and U.S. Army uniforms and using captured Allied vehicles, were to cause confusion in the rear of the Allied lines. A lack of vehicles, uniforms and equipment limited the operation and it never achieved its original aim of securing the Meuse bridges. Skorzeny's postwar trial set a precedent clarifying article 4 of the Geneva Convention: as the German soldiers removed the Allied uniforms before engaging in combat, they were not to be considered francs-tireurs.

There was an earlier military operation that used this name; an anti-partisan operation conducted by the German Army, begun on 14 August 1944, in the vicinity of Orsha and Vitebsk in the Soviet Union.

On 14 December, Panzerbrigade 150 was assembled near Bad Münstereifel and on the afternoon of 16 December it moved out, advancing behind the three attacking Panzer divisions, the 1st SS Panzer Division, the 12th SS Panzer Division, and the 12th Volksgrenadier Division, with the aim of moving around them when they reached the High Fens. However, when the 1st SS Panzer Division failed to reach the start point within two days, Skorzeny realized that Operation Greif's initial aims were now doomed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Greif .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Skorzeny .

44-7-30 Operation Bluecoat 44-8-7

Jagdpanther vs. Churchill - Normandy 1944 > .

Three enormous Jagdpanthers surprised a battalion of Scots Guards Churchills during Operation Bluecoat, Normandy 1944, with terrifying results.

Operation Bluecoat was an offensive in the Battle of Normandy, from 30 July until 7 August 1944, during the Second World War. The geographical objectives of the attack, undertaken by VIII Corps and XXX Corps of the British Second Army (Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey), were to secure the road junction of Vire and the high ground of Mont Pinçon. Operationally, the attack was made to exploit the success of Operation Cobra by the First US Army after it broke out on the western flank of the Normandy beachhead and tactically to exploit the withdrawal of the 2nd Panzer Division from the Caumont area, to take part in Unternehmen Lüttich (Operation Liège) a counter-offensive against the Americans.