Allied forces accidentally bombed Switzerland during World War II. President Franklin Roosevelt sent a letter of apology. For more details click this link. Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Air Force
By Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
Japanese forces on April 7, 1944, encircle British XXXIII Corps troops near Jotsoma, India. They also block the main road from there to Kohima, five-and-a-half miles to the east, where some 3,500 British Indian troops are trapped and engaged in bitter fighting. In Hungary, large-scale evacuations of civilians from Budapest begin as a result of recent Allied air raids.
On April 8, the Red Army reaches the Slovakian border. It also continues its advance into Romania. A Soviet offensive to destroy the German 17th Army in Crimea begins.
The last units of the 1st Panzer Army regain the German lines on April 9 after a 150-mile forced march. The Red Army breaks through German lines at Kerch in the eastern Crimea.
The RAF drops a record 3,600 tons of bombs over northern France, Belgium and Germany on April 10. Farther east, the Soviets enter Odessa, on the Black Sea, as German forces withdraw from the city. At Harvard University, organic chemists R.B. Woodward and W.E. Doering produce the first chemically synthesized quinine. Previously, the medicinal — used to treat malaria — could only be produced by extracting the material from the bark of remotely grown cinchona trees.
A raid by RAF deHavilland Mosquito bombers on April 11 hits Gestapo headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands; all records of the Nazis’ Central Population Registry Office are destroyed, likely saving the lives of hundreds of members of the Dutch Resistance. President Roosevelt sends a letter of apology to the mayor of Schaffhausen, Switzerland, accidentally bombed by U.S. planes on April 1. The U.S. ultimately pays $4 million in reparations to the Swiss over the incident that killed 50 residents and injured 250 others.
Hitler on April 12 authorizes 230,000 German and Romanian troops in the Crimea to withdraw to the fortress of Sevastopol. However, this decision is four days too late and the delay results in many unnecessary losses. German forces, driven hard by the Red Army, begin evacuating the Crimean Peninsula. In Italy, King Victor Emmanuel announces his intention to step down once the Allies enter Rome and to appoint his son, Crown Prince Umberto, as “Lieutenant of the Realm.”
On Papua-New Guinea, Australian troops on April 13 capture Bogadjim on the northern coast of the island. In Europe, American and British planes conduct numerous tactical attacks on German coastal batteries in Normandy, France. A federal judge in Honolulu rules that continued martial law in Hawaii is unnecessary and invalid.
In Ukraine, the city of Odessa, in the Crimea, is liberated by Soviet forces on April 14. In India, the British freighter SS Fort Stikine, carrying artillery shells, explosives, cotton bales, lubricating oil and gold bullion, catches fire and explodes while being unloaded at the Victoria Dock at Bombay. The blast wrecks 27 ships in the harbor, sinking some, and kills around 800 people and injures some 1,500 others.
The Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front captures Tarnopol, in western Ukraine on April 15. The German commander, Maj. Gen. Egon von Neindorff, is killed in the fighting and organized German resistance falls quickly apart. In the Pacific, the American aircraft carrier USS Yorktown launches aerial raids against the Japanese islands of Chichijima and Iwo Jima.
Yalta, in the Crimea, is captured by the Red Army on April 16. Soviet bombers strike Galaţi, Romania, a port city on the Danube River. South of Nantucket Island, German submarine U-550, after torpedoing the American tanker SS Pan-Pennsylvania (which was carrying 140,000 barrels of 80-octane aviation fuel), is depth-charged by the U.S. Coast Guard-manned destroyer escort USS Joyce and forced to surface. Thirteen of the U-boat’s crew, including the captain, are captured, but the sub, with its seacocks having been opened, sinks before a party can board her.
On April 17, the Japanese launch a major offensive in central China, aimed at the southeastern portion of the country, where American bomber bases are located. In Europe, American B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bombers strike Sofia, Bulgaria, and Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The British Royal Navy begins mining the approaches to the English Channel, as far north as Denmark, with the intention of preventing German interference with the planned Allied invasion of France. Over 7.000 mines will be laid.
The British Foreign Office on April 18 bans all coded messages from being transmitted by foreign embassies and says that diplomatic bags will be censored. Diplomats are forbidden from leaving the country. Only the fighting Allies are to be excluded from the restrictions, in hopes of keeping the plans for the impending D-Day invasion secret. In India, the first reinforcements for the British garrison surrounded at Kohima begin to arrive. In the Crimea, the Russians take Balaklava, near Sevastopol.
Indian and British troops begin pushing the Japanese back from Kohima, India, on April 19. On the Eastern Front, the Battle of Sevastopol continues, with Soviet ships bombarding the city. In Washington, D.C., the House of Representatives approves extending the Lend-Lease program. In Indonesia, the British conduct an air raid on Japanese-held Sabang, damaging port facilities and the airfield there. Neutral Sweden rejects demands by the Allies to halt sales of ball bearings to Germany.
Col. Gen. Hans-Valentin Hube, whose aggressiveness on the Eastern Front has made him one of Hitler’s favorites, is killed on April 20 when his plane crashes on takeoff from Berchtesgaden. Hube was returning to his command after offering der Führer birthday greetings in person. Grief-stricken at losing such an outstanding commander, Hitler orders a state funeral for Hube in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. The U.S. Liberty ship SS PAUL HAMILTON is attacked by German planes off Algiers. The vessel’s cargo of high explosives detonates and she goes down in less than a minute with all aboard — 41 crew and 539 military passengers.
British bombers drop 4,500 tons of bombs on four railroad centers in France and Belgium on April 21, 1944. In Italy, Marshal Pietro Badoglio forms a coalition government. From Algeria, Charles de Gaulle, leader of the French provisional government, issues a decree giving French women the right to vote.
U.S. Navy planes on April 22 launch multiple attacks across Papua-New Guinea as the U.S. Army’s 24th and 41st Infantry Divisions land at Hollandia and Aitape, in the northern part of the island, cutting off Japanese forces there. In China, Japanese forces capture the city of Chengchow, Henan Province, in the east-central part of the country. After five months of fighting, the Battle of Cape Gloucester, on New Britain Island, ends in an Allied victory.
On April 23 German Army Group North counterattacks the Red Army southwest of Narva, Estonia. In Egypt, a communist-inspired mutiny occurs aboard five Greek warships in port at Alexandria. The rebellion is put down by loyal Greek forces, with about 50 casualties.
British and Indian troops on April 24 are still trying to break the Japanese stranglehold on Kohima in India. The lines are only around 50 yards apart and fighting is fierce, sometimes hand-to-hand. Casualties are high on both sides. In Great Britain, the government bans all overseas travel. Some 400 French civilians die in an Allied air raid on Rouen.
The Luftwaffe on April 25 launches night-time raids on shipping in the British ports of Portsmouth and Plymouth-Devonport. U.S. troops secure Hollandia and Aitape, in Papua-New Guinea, inflicting 9,000 Japanese casualties, while suffering only 450 killed themselves. In Germany, with Allied control of the skies now virtually complete, Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, strongly objects to Adolf Hitler’s plan to fly to Berlin for one of his rare visits — this time, to attend Col. Gen. Hube’s funeral. Hitler insists on going anyway. It will be the last time the increasingly reclusive Führer will show himself at a large public gathering in the Third Reich.
Marshal Philippe Pétain, Chief of the (Vichy) French State, makes his first and only visit to Paris over the course of the war on April 26 to inspect Allied bomb damage. The crowds cheer him enthusiastically. At Kohima, India, British troops capture and fortify a building on a hill that overlooks the center of the Japanese lines, forcing the Japanese to pull back slightly to reorganize their defenses. RAF Hurricane fighter-bombers supply air support by bombing and strafing Japanese position.
As of April 27, vast preparations continue all over southern England for the upcoming invasion of France. At Slapton Sands, Devon, in southwest England, “Exercise Tiger” gets underway: Gen. Eisenhower has ordered live-fire rehearsal landings (including pre-landing shore bombardments by naval ships) to prepare soldiers for the sights, sounds and smells they will experience during the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June. Tragedy strikes when some of the LSTs scheduled to participate are late in arriving. U.S. Rear Adm. Don Moon, commanding the exercise, orders the offshore bombardment and the landings delayed for one hour. However, some of the LSTs that rendezvoused on time and are already there do not get word of the delay and begin landings at the originally appointed hour. The first wave lands its troops safely, but the second wave arrives at the beach simultaneously with the delayed naval bombardment. Rumors circulate through the fleet that as many as 450 U.S. soldiers and sailors died on or near the beach.
