The Second World War.

[scoundrel]

Known as Raider H to the British Admiralty, the Hilfkreuzer (Auxilliary Cruiser) Michel was the last German surface warship ever to reach the open seas away from the European area. She made two cruises, though arguably it was one cruise because she never returned to Germany and spent time in Japan refitting between March 2 and May 1 1943, at the Mitsubishi shipyard in Kobe. Her first cruise began in March 1942.

Her first captain stood down on reaching Japan at his own request; he was starting to suffer from a heart condition which ultimately killed him in 1948. His replacement perished on October 17 1943 when the Michel, only a few hours away from safe harbour in Japan, was torpedoed by the American submarine USS Tarpon.

Times were different by mid 1942. The balance of force was tilting against the German side. The tactics originally employed by the likes of Captain Bernhard Rogge were being discarded and much more direct methods were being used. Michel was not a fast enough ship for the job she was expected to do: at least two knots slower than Atlantis and Pinguin had been. She also had six guns rather than eight and they were of an antiquated type with an effective range not much more than 5 miles. Her captain became disillusioned with the Captain Teach shot-across-the-bows technique which had worked pretty well for Captain Rogge. His first two victims resisted for a while, broadcasting RRRR to the world, and this was serious now, in a war where numerous raiders and blockade runners had recently been caught and sunk by British patrols in waters which were no longer as lonely as the German side would have preferred. To add insult to injury, the British Blue Funnel liner SS Menelaus was unimpressed by Michel's disguise, avoided the fall of shot from Michel, avoided the torpedoes fired by Michel's in-house E Boat, and blew Michel off. The books all said that Menelaus could only do 14 knots flat out. Michel could do 16 knots and Menelaus outran her, the only time a ship ever got away after a German surface raider opened fire on her. She even sent some uncomplimentary signals in morse to her German pursuer to express her views on having been disturbed.

Captain Ruckteschell was displeased. The failure was doubly costly because he was forced to abandon his position and disappear away from the shipping lanes until the heat was off again and he had not even sunk his target. But it was his own fault for opening fire when not yet close enough. The tactical lesson he decided to learn was cruder than this: no more Mr Nice Guy.

A month later he sank the Norwegian freighter Kattegat. No warning was given: he stalked her from over the horizon in daylight, closed in after nightfall and opened fire with all guns from close range and with no warning given. The Kattegat managed to signal her distress and on this occasion Captain Ruckteschell showed mercy and ceased fire. He even rescued her crew, all 60 of them, because it so happened that none of them died in the shelling. The tactic worked and compensated for Michel's lack of speed and unimpressive guns. But on a number of occasions it led to grim results when ships blew up and most or all of their crews were killed, regardless of whether or not the Germans were willing to rescue them. In fairness, Captain Ruckteschell usually tried to fish men out.

The worst case was on Michel's second outing under Captain Günther Gumprich. Finding a target near Easter Island, the Germans fired one salvo and there was a massive explosion. They knew no one would have lived and sent their torpedo boat to take a look, identify the burning ship and have a quick sniff just in case there were any swimmers. No one was alive. The ship was the Texaco tanker MT India.

Most of the Germans were lost when USS Tarpon sank their ship about 6 weeks after they sank the India. It was many years after the war that people interviewed the Michel surviving crew and checked Allied records and realised that her victim had been MT India, which had simply vanished off the face of the earth.

Captain Ruckteschell was sentenced to ten years in prison for firing on Allied seamen after they had surrendered and firing on men in lifeboats. I am not sure just exactly how guilty he was: war is not clean or nice, and men whom he did rescue testified that he had treated them well, only handing them to the Japanese under protest after being ordered not to return to Germany. Mainly his crime was that he was a bit slow to cease fire. But I doubt if I would have acquitted him; however one of the four convictions was overturned on appeal and he got remission as well. But he died in prison, only days before he was going to be released.

It could have been worse though. He could have been one of the crew of MT India.

[scoundrel]

On April 29th 1945, the war was coming close to the very end.

• American GIs of the 42nd Infantry Division entered Dachau. Apart from the horror of the place itself, some of the SS guards were so misguided as to open fire from watchtowers as the American entered. The Americans made some examples, including the camp second in command, Untersturmfuhrer Heinrich Wicker : the actual camp commander had run away before the Americans arrived. The Americans had rescued about 32,000 remaining prisoners and captured about 560 SS guards, of whom between 30 and 50 experienced bad luck with their health. There was the beginnings of an investigation but General Patton put a stop to that in no uncertain terms.
• British forces reached Venice and the mainland town of Maestre opposite the lagoon. Major Vladimir Peniakoff and a number of his men crossed the lagoon in DUKWs carrying Willys Jeeps and drove them around St Marks Square, probably the only time anyone has driven motorised four wheeled vehicled in Venice.
• The Brazilian Expeditionary Force won a notable victory at Collechio-Fornovo, about 8 miles south of Parma, capturing the remnants of the Italian Fascist Army and of three German divisions. The Brazilians had the equivalent of one division and the Germans and Italians fought them so it was a really good effort from the Brazilian forces.
• German general von Vietinghoff agreed and signed terms of surrender for all German forces in Italy. Benito Mussolini had been captured and killed the previous day and there was little reason for the Germans in Italy to continue. The surrender only took effect on 2 May 1945 because von Vietinghoff was arrested and replaced by Albert Kesselring, with orders to fight on; but Kesselring ordered that plans to execute von Vietinghoff be cancelled when news of Hitler's suicide arrived, and ordered von Vietinghoff to finish what he had started. So the surrender took effect at noon on 2 May 1945, exactly as von Vietinghoff had first agreed; and von Vietinghoff lived for the next two and half years in Wales as a POW of the British. He died of natural causes in 1952.
• The first airlift of food for the starving people of German occupied Holland took place: the RAF called it Operation Manna. The local Gauleiter, Artur Seyss-Inquart, had agreed to allow it and the German AA guns did not shoot. Lancasters from 3 RAF Bomber Command groups (1, 3 and 8) participated.
• Hitler married Eva Braun. It was a bit surreal really that these two plighted their troth both knowing that 29 April 1945 would be their last day. Hitler's bunker staff tested the cyanide capsules on his dog, Blondi, to make absolutely sure the poison would work.
• SS leader Himmler had been negotiating with Count Bernadotte, then Vice President of the Swedish Red Cross, in an attempt to create a separate peace with Britain and the USA while continuing to wage war with Russia. Count Bernadotte humoured Himmler as part of seeking to weedle the safe release of more Jewish inmates from camps; he had managed to gain 11,000 lives from the grip of the Final Solution since 1943 and was still hoping to gain some more. Bormann learned of this via the British wireless. He obtained Hitler's agreement to sack Himmler on 29 April 1945. Fegelein, Himmler's representative in the bunker, was executed the day before.
• On the Eastern Front, Army Group Centre's counter attack against Ivan Koniev's Fourth Ukrainian Front was petering out. Units of the German 4th Panzer Army and of the German 17th Army has attacked the 2nd Polish Army and the Soviet 52nd Army around Bautzen, a town south of Berlin and close to the border of what is now the Czech Republic. They succeeded in preventing the Red Army from reaching Bautzen but failed to link up with the encircled German 9th Army and did not prevent the encirclement of Berlin. But for the Polish 2nd Army this battle was the nastiest engagement it suffered in the war.
• SS Obergruppenfuhrer (Lt General) Mattias Kleinheisterkamp committed suicide as a POW of the Red Army after being captured the previous day. Perhaps he didn't like the hotel.
• Ex Milice man and renegade Frenchman Henri Fernet, now serving in the SS Charlemagne Division, was awarded the Knights Cross for commanding and leading a unit which destroyed 62 Russian tanks during the defence of the Reichs Chancelry. After the war, France awarded Henri Fernet twenty years hard labour but sadly he was released after only four. Pity.
• The Imperial Japanese Army retreated from Rangoon in Burma to avoid impending encirclement as the British Commonwealth 14th Army closed in for the kill.

[Historian]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

On April 29th 1945, the war was coming close to the very end.

• British forces reached Venice and the mainland town of Maestre opposite the lagoon. Major Vladimir Peniakoff and a number of his men crossed the lagoon in DUKWs carrying Willys Jeeps and drove them around St Marks Square, probably the only time anyone has driven motorised four wheeled vehicled in Venice.
  

Vladimir 'Popski' Peniakoff and his men were members of the last, smallest, and possibly least-known of the irregular special forces units which were established in the Middle East campaign to raid and gather intelligence deep behind German lines in the desert - the others of course being the Long Range Desert Group and the SAS.

Peniakoff's unit, 'No. 1 Demolition Squadron, PPA' (The abbreviation 'PPA' in the unit title, incidentally, stands simply for 'Popski's Private Army') was formed in late 1942, and initially comprised no more than 25 men, recruited as volunteers from other units, and even at it's peak when serving in Italy, had an official strength of only 80, although in practice this was expanded to around 100 in the field.

It was equipped with Jeeps, heavily armed with .303 and .50 machine guns, also had DUKWs and small landing craft, and was generally organised as three fighting patrols, each of 6 Jeeps, and a Tactical HQ Patrol of 4 Jeeps.

After operating in North Africa and Italy, it was disbanded in Sept. 1945, by which time PPA members had accumulated between them a DSO, a DCM ,6 Military Crosses, 10 Military Medals, and 14 Mentions in Dispatches.

Peniakoff was a Belgian of Russian descent, who had studied at Cambridge, although he failed to complete his degree, subsequently qualifying as an electrical engineer in Switzerland. He may (records seem to be vague on this) have briefly served in the French Army during WW1, but in the 1920's moved to Egypt to manage a sugar mill. Whilst in Egypt, he spent his leisure time sailing on the Nile, learning to fly, learning to speak Arabic (he was already fluent in several languages) and exploring the desert- he became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1937.

Although in his 40's at the outbreak of war, he volunteered for the Army, having been turned down by both the Royal Navy and RAF. Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, and posted to 3rd Battalion Libyan Arab Force, a unit of Senussi Arab troops under British command, originally intended to conduct a guerilla campaign against the Italians, he was frustrated to find himself initially tied down to garrison and policing duties.

Promoted to Major by 1942, he set up a small 'Libyan Arab Force Commando' unit, and spent several months attached to the LRDG, gathering intelligence behind enemy lines, an activity better-suited to his talents and temperament.

Returning from this mission, he was surprised to discover that his unit had been disbanded, and the army appeared to have forgotten about him- to the point that he hadn't been paid for months! With the support of Lt-Col John 'Shan' Hackett (later General Sir John Hackett) at GHQ Cairo, a new unit which became 'Popski's Private Army' was formed- the name apparently the result of Hackett's exasperation at Peniakoff's failure to suggest a more official title

At the time of the little adventure in Venice in the last weeks of the war, 'Popski' had only recently returned to command the PPA, after recovering from wounds including the loss of his left hand. He ended the war as a Lieutentant-Colonel, and subsequently wrote a best-selling memoir of his activities during the war

Lt-Col. Vladimir Peniakoff, DSO MC died of a brain tumour in London in May 1951, aged 54.



http://www.popski.org/home

[haroldeye]

The Regular Army officers thought Popski and his men Cowboys, and Popski played to the gallery. Apparently the 8th Army used either bugle calls or a burst of bren fire as a reveille call. Popski used a small charge of PE to wake his men.

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by haroldeye

The Regular Army officers thought Popski and his men Cowboys, and Popski played to the gallery. Apparently the 8th Army used either bugle calls or a burst of bren fire as a reveille call. Popski used a small charge of PE to wake his men.

Personally I favour bagpipes for reveille-the human being is yet to be born who can sleep through bagpipes being played right outside their tent....[and yes this WAS the standard method of reveille for the NZ Scottish Regiment during regimental annual camps-marching up and down the tentlines playing the pipes at 'oh dark hundred'-the specific piper responsible-who mysteriously somehow escaped being murdered by his comrades.....is still active on ceremonial occasions 35+ years later....]

[haroldeye]

George MacDonald Fraser recounted, in one of his McAuslan stories, the tale about the how after one Mess night the CO arranged for the Pipes and Drums to sneak next to the subalterns billet and crash into 'Are y' awake Johnnie Cope'. His description of the subbies screaming into existence is hilarious.

[onehourplus]

The P-40 wasn't all that hot a fighter plane, but it sure did lend itself to this sort of artwork.

[scoundrel]

On 8 May 1945 at 23.01 Central European Time, all forces in Europe under German command were supposed to cease operations. The surrender had been signed by General Jodl on the authority of Admiral Doenitz the previous day.

For a variety of reasons, hostilities did not end as abruptly as the ceasefire agreement said that they should. In particular, a lot of German forces and local collaborators were most unwilling to surrender to Russian forces, let alone local partisans. Presumably they were still hoping to maintain lines of communication between their central nervous systems and blood circulatory systems and their reproductive organs.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by onehourplus

The P-40 wasn't all that hot a fighter plane, but it sure did lend itself to this sort of artwork.

The P40 was unsuccessful in the North West European theatre as a day fighter; but in the ground attack role it did pretty well. It was a very effective multi-role combat aircraft in North Africa, the Pacific and Far East in 1941-42; one of the very few Allied aircraft in the first eighteen months after Pearl Harbour which the Japanese felt obliged to handle with caution. It was a very robust aeroplane both in difficult terraine and in straight combat, and its typical configuration of six point five machine guns was formidable. In combat in Burma, China, the Pacific and North Africa it was rarely required to fly at high altitudes and below 15,000 feet the lack of a supercharger on the Allison engine was not a serious handicap.

[scoundrel]

Russian forces entered Austria on 30th March 1945 after crushing the Spring Awakening offensive by Army Group Centre and turning their southern flank deep into what is now the Czech Republic, exposing the road west across the Austrian frontier. The Americans and French entered Salzburgerland and Tyrol on 30th April from Bavaria, the same day that Hitler took his own life.

British Commonwealth forces only entered Austria on 7th May; tanks rolled across the Plocken Pass. By 10am on 8th May, British Eighth Army had occupied the Carinthian province capital of Klagenfurt unopposed. It was high time: German forces had ceased to exist and all sorts of people were turning up: Hungarian troops of the St Lazlo Division; the Cossacks; Croatian and Slovenian collaborationist forces and the Yugoslav partisans in hot pursuit.

The Yugoslav partisans had already declared Carinthia to be part of Yugoslavia when British forces arrived, but the British forces had tanks, artillery and aeroplanes and had absolutely no problem about shooting first and pissing on the dead bodies afterwards if they caught bandits red handed doing bandit stuff. So the partisans sulked and went home without waiting to be told. The Austrian civilians were extremely relieved when the British Army showed up because the alternative was the Russians; however, such was the chaos of the times, Russian occupation would have been preferable to the depredations of the lawless mob or of the Yugoslav partisans bent on looting, rape and revenge. The arrival of soldiers under discipline meant that someone was in charge again, and Lord of the Flies Time was over.