The two military leaders of the Slovak National Uprising, General Rudolf Viest (sitting left) and General Ján Golian (sitting right) during examination after their capture in November 1944 in Bratislava. Both generals are in civil clothes. Wikipedia
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.
The German 20th Gebirgsarmee (Mountain Army) evacuates the mineral-rich Petsamo region of northern Finland on November 3, 1944. The two supreme military commanders of the Slovak National Uprising in Czechoslovakia (put down by the Germans on October 28, 1944) are captured. Generals Rudolf Viest and Ján Golian are taken to the Flossenberg concentration camp in Bavaria, where they are tortured and likely murdered (the camp’s records of their final disposition having been lost or destroyed). As the Red Army approaches Budapest, members of the pro-German Hungarian government prepare to flee.
The last of the Axis forces remaining on the mainland of Greece leave on November 4. German occupation troops will remain on several of the Greek islands until they individually surrender. Long-range Soviet artillery bombards Budapest. In Asia, British Indian troops capture Kennedy Peak, near Tiddim, in northwestern Burma. They hold the heights against several strong Japanese counterattacks.
In Asia, U.S. planes on November 5 bomb Singapore, held by the Japanese since 1942. U.S. planes also pound Manila, destroying 249 Japanese aircraft. In Cairo, Egypt, two members of the Zionist organization Lehi (sometimes called the “Stern Gang,” after the group’s founder, Avraham Stern) assassinate Lord Moyne, the British Resident Minister for the Middle East. Lehi leaders say the purpose of the assassination is to strike a blow at British imperialism. In addition, they say they feel that Moyne, in particular, was the architect of the United Kingdom’s strict policy limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine. The German Fourth Army recaptures the town of Goldap, in East Prussia. In Italy, British troops move into Ravenna, cutting the railroad line to Bologna.
On November 6, while pursuing the surviving Japanese ships retreating from the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the aircraft carrier USS Lexington is badly damaged off Luzon, the Philippines, by a Japanese kamikaze aircraft. In France, the provisional government strikes down all French anti-Semitic laws. In Moscow, Stalin, in a discussion, refers to Japan as “an aggressive nation.”
In the U.S., Franklin Delano Roosevelt on November 7 is elected to an unprecedented fourth term as President of the United States, defeating New York Governor Thomas Dewey, the Republican candidate. Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri will be Roosevelt’s vice president. Over Yugoslavia, in the vicinity of Niš, Serbia, an air battle occurs between U.S. and Soviet air force planes. A flight of 27 U.S. P-38 Lightning fighters begins strafing a column of Red Army troops (thinking they are Germans), killing 37, wounding 31 and destroying several vehicles. Soviet ground commanders, thinking they are being attacked by German planes, call for air support. Two groups of Soviet Yak-3 fighters respond, engaging the American planes in a 25-minute battle over the city, resulting in 3 Lightnings and 4 Yaks downed. Afterward, the U.S. apologizes to the Soviet Union for the “misunderstanding.” In Athens, the Greek government orders the dissolution of the country’s two largest resistance groups.
On November 8, for the first time in the history of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler fails to appear in Munich to address “the Old Fighters” on the anniversary of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch (the failed coup d’etat by the fledgling Nazi Party). Instead, Heinrich Himmler reads a speech in der Führer’s place. The Luftwaffe’s Austrian fighter ace (258 victories), Maj. Walter Nowotny, is killed in his Me-262, which crashes near Achmer, Germany, in Lower Saxony, about 12 miles north of his home airbase at Osnabrück. In Hungary, 25,000 Hungarian Jews are “loaned” to the Germans as forced laborers by the on-the-run Hungarian government. In Tokyo, Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso makes a public commitment to victory on Leyte, the Philippines.
In France, the troops and tanks of the U.S. Third Army, under Gen. George S. Patton, by November 9 have captured the outer defenses of heavily fortified Metz and threaten the city. In Norway, the Switzerland-based International Committee of the Red Cross is named as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize “for the great work it has performed during the war in behalf of humanity.” Because of the war, no Peace Prize had been awarded since 1938. In France, Georges Suarez, editor of the pro-German newspaper Aujourd’hui (“Today”), is executed by firing squad for collaborating with the Nazis.
Heavy fighting continues on the island of Leyte, in the Philippines, on November 10. In Washington, D.C., the War Department estimates that total U.S. war casualties have surpassed the 500,000 mark. In the Balkans, the Allies recognize the Albanian government of anti-Nazi partisan Enver Hoxha. In Rotterdam, the Netherlands, German occupation troops begin rounding up the first of 50,000 men to be sent to Germany to be used as forced laborers. While lying at anchor at Manus Island, in the Admiralties off Papua-New Guinea, the ammunition ship USS Mount Hood suffers an internal explosion that detonates the 3,800 tons of ordnance aboard. The ship disintegrates immediately, and the entire crew (267 men, less 20 who are ashore) is vaporized. Over 100 sailors on other nearby ships and small boats are killed (their remains are never found) and some 382 others afloat and ashore are injured. Eighteen ships are damaged, some heavily, while 22 smaller vessels are sunk, destroyed or damaged beyond repair.
U.S. Navy carrier-based aircraft attack a Japanese convoy off Leyte Island, the Philippines, on November 11. Four destroyers, one minesweeper and five transports carrying nearly 10,000 troops are sunk. The Japanese capture the Allied airbase at Liuchow, in southern China. U.S. Navy planes bomb the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima.
On November 12, the German battleship Tirpitz, anchored in a fjord near Tromsø, Norway, is attacked by the RAF. Two bombs find their mark and the vessel quickly capsizes, trapping over 1,000 crewmen inside her hull. Removal of Tirpitz — the last threat to Allied convoys to the Soviet Union — means that Britain’s Royal Navy can transfer its heavy warships to the Pacific. In southern Europe, Allied bombers attack the railway running through the Brenner Pass on the Austrian-Italian border. In Rome, 80,000 leftists parade through the streets to celebrate the anniversary of the Russian Revolution and to protest against Italy’s monarchy.
German troops evacuate Skopje, Macedonia, in Yugoslavia, on November 13. U.S. Navy aircraft attack shipping around, and land targets on, the island of Luzon, the Philippines. The Japanese submarine I-12 is sunk midway between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland by two American warships (one Navy, one Coast Guard) escorting a six-ship convoy to the Islands from the West Coast.
From London, the Norwegian government-in-exile on November 14 announces that Norwegian troops are operating alongside Soviet forces in the far north. Bulgarian and Yugoslav forces enter Skopje, Macedonia. In Prague, Czechoslovakia, a Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia is founded (with Nazi encouragement and support) by anti-communists from various regions of the U.S.S.R.
In Hungary on November 15, the Red Army captures Jázberény, 37 miles east of Budapest. In the Korea Strait between Korea and Japan, the Japanese amphibious assault ship Akitsu Maru is torpedoed and sunk by the American submarine USS Queenfish. The sinking kills 2,046 men, mostly soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army’s 64th Infantry Regiment.
On November 16, the RAF drops 5,689 tons of bombs — a record for one day — on German lines to the east of Aachen, Germany. With Antwerp, Belgium, Marseilles, France, and other liberated ports now available for Allied use, the “Red Ball Express,” a relay of U.S. Army supply trucks operating between the front lines and the Normandy beaches, is shut down. In Belgium, political disagreements between the government and representatives of the resistance movement result in the resignation of three ministers. Sweden announces that the German minister has been recalled and that Swedish police are rounding up Gestapo operatives.
