Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower speaks with troops shortly after D-Day. On Sept. 1, 1944, he established the allied headquarters in France.
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.
Soviet forces reach the Bulgarian border at Giurgiu, on the Danube, on September 1, 1944. Bulgarian prime minister Ivan Bagrianov resigns, with Konstantin Muraviev replacing him. U.S. Army Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Commander in Chief, Allied Expeditionary Forces, establishes his Supreme Headquarters in France. Canadian First Army troops capture Dieppe, France, locale of a failed Canadian commando raid in August 1942. Gen. Bernard Montgomery is promoted to Field Marshal, the British Army’s highest rank.
Allied troops enter Belgium on September 2. The Canadian First Army reaches the river Somme, in Picardy, northern France. The Germans begin to evacuate the Greek Aegean Islands. In Helsinki, Finnish Prime Minister Antii Hackzell announces that Finland is breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany and demands that all German troops be withdrawn. The German launching of V-1s from France ceases. Holocaust diarist Annelies “Anne” Frank, a 15-year-old Dutch Jew, having been held in an internment camp in the Netherlands since her family’s capture in August, is sent to Auschwitz. The train carrying her, her family and others, is the last to leave the Netherlands for the Nazi concentration camp.
Brussels, Belgium, is liberated by the British on September 3, while Lyon, France, is freed by American and French troops. Finland and the Soviet Union agree on a ceasefire. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt is appointed Commander of the German Army in the West, taking over for Field Marshal Walter Model, who retains command of Army Group B. In the Pacific, Wake Island and other strategic targets are bombed and strafed by U.S. Navy aircraft for two days, during which 13 Japanese ships are reported sunk.
The British, South African and U.S. air forces on September 4 start “Operation Ratweek,” a joint operation with Allied ground forces and Yugoslav Partisans, to hinder the German retreat from the Balkans. The British 11th Armored Division enters Antwerp, Belgium. The Soviet and Finnish governments implement a cease-fire; the Germans are ordered to leave Finland by the 15th of September. In Bulgaria, four days of anti-government strikes begin; most are violent.
Antwerp, Belgium, is freed by the British on September 5. The Soviet Union declares war on Bulgaria. In Poland, the Second Warsaw Uprising continues; the Red Army continues to stand idly nearby. Sweden says it will bar entry to any Nazis attempting to flee Greater Germany. RAF planes bomb Le Havre, France, creating a firestorm that kills 2,500 people.
Canadian troops surround Calais, France, on September 6, trapping the German garrison. Liège, Belgium, falls to British troops, while the U.S. First Army pushes eastward through Belgium, crossing the River Meuse. The Soviets occupy Turnu-Severin, on the Danube in Romania, and advance to the Yugoslav border. They also reach the eastern Carpathian Mountains. In the United Kingdom, the Minister for Home Security announces a relaxation of blackout and other civil-defense measures. The British War Office ends compulsory training and drills for the Home Guard.
The British 11th Armoured Division crosses the Albert Canal, to the east of Antwerp, Belgium, on September 7. The U.S. Third Army crosses the Moselle River. U.S. 9th Air Force fighters, supporting elements of the U.S. Seventh Army in southern France, destroy an estimated 500 German vehicles along a 15-mile section of road. Germany’s armored forces have been shattered along the Western Front — German Army Group B has only about a hundred operational tanks remaining. The Belgian government-in-exile returns to Brussels from London. Romania declares war on Hungary. The submarine USS Paddle torpedoes the Japanese cargo ship Shinyō Maru in the Sulu Sea. Intelligence reports said the vessel is transporting Japanese soldiers, but, unfortunately, it is carrying 750 American prisoners of war, of whom 688 perish.
The first German V-2 rockets (the first long-range, guided, ballistic missiles), launched from mobile bases in the Netherlands, land on London, Paris and Antwerp on September 8, 1944. Canadian troops liberate Ostend, Belgium. The Red Army invades Bulgaria, which immediately arranges an armistice with the Soviet Union and declares war on Germany.
The U.S. 113th Cavalry crosses the Belgian-Dutch border on September 9. In the Philippines, three groups of the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 38, with a total of 12 aircraft carriers, attack Japanese airfields on Mindanao Island. In Bulgaria, a coup d’etat led primarily by communists and partisans overthrows Prime Minister Konstantin Muraviev after one week in office. He is replaced by Kimon Georgiev. In France, Provisional President Charles de Gaulle names himself as the country’s prime minister.
Luxembourg is liberated by U.S. troops on September 10. Meanwhile, the first Allied troops reach western Germany, at Aachen, a city on the border with Belgium and the Netherlands. In the East, the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front attacks German forces defending Praga, a suburb of Warsaw on the east bank of the Vistula River.
The 15th Scottish Division crosses the Dutch border, east of Antwerp, on September 11. A bridgehead is established across the Meuse-Escaut canal. The U.S. Third Army captures a large part of France’s Maginot Line intact and reaches the German border at Trier, on the Moselle River. The 1st French Division occupies Dijon, in eastern France. Elements of the Canadian First Army reach Zeebrugge, on the Belgian coast. Bulgaria begins releasing Allied prisoners of war.
After heavy fighting, the German garrison at Le Havre, France, surrenders on September 12. The Greek government-in-exile moves from Cairo, Egypt, to Caserta, in the south of liberated Italy, to be closer to Greece in anticipation of returning. Meeting at the Second Quebec Conference, in Quebec City, Canada, Churchill and Roosevelt discuss plans for the postwar status of Germany. Canadian Prime Minister W. L. MacKenzie King — present, but not a participant — expresses concern for President Roosevelt’s physical appearance, writing in his diary: “It seemed to me . . . that he had failed very much since I last saw him.” As it turns out, Roosevelt, and those closest to him, are concealing a serious heart ailment from the public. In the Pacific, American planes fly 2,400 sorties over the Visayan Islands, in the Philippines.
American naval forces begin a preliminary bombardment of Peleliu and Angaur in the Palau Islands of the western Carolines on September 13. American troops reach the Siegfried Line, the western wall of Germany’s defense system. It stretches 390 miles from the German-Dutch border to the German-Swiss border, and includes more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps. The Soviets reach the Polish-Czechoslovak border. Romania signs an armistice with the Soviet Union and agrees to provide 12 divisions to fight the Germans.
U.S. troops take Aachen, the first large German city to fall to the Allies, on September 14. The Soviet “Baltic Offensive” begins: Three Red Army Baltic Fronts launch an offensive with 900,000 men, 3,000 tanks and 2,600 aircraft against Army Group North which is forced to fall back to defensive positions around Riga, Latvia. Red Army troops reach the Vistula in the Praga suburb of Warsaw but make no attempt to cross the river. The Soviets — relenting to pressure from the U.S. and the U.K. — air-drop supplies to the Polish Home Army in Warsaw.
