The Royal Artillery Mounted Band at the West Riding Barracks, British Army of the Rhine, Dortmund. 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 Belgian government announces on September 14, 1945, that three Belgian army divisions, comprising 17,000 men, will participate in the occupation of Germany as part of the British Army of the Rhine, under the supreme command of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
On September 15, 300 RAF aircraft overfly London to mark the fifth anniversary of the Battle of Britain; commemorative parades are held throughout the nation. In Washington, D.C., the U.S. Department of War issues figures showing that a total of 7,306,000 soldiers (including a small number of Allied forces and civilians) and 126,859,000 tons of war cargo had been moved from American ports to all fronts between December 1941 and August 31, 1945. The U.S. Office of War Information is dissolved.
The Japanese garrison in Hong Kong officially surrenders on September 16. The British Royal Navy’s Rear Adm. Cecil Harcourt signs the formal surrender instrument with American, Chinese and Canadian representatives present. The British land troops at Batavia, Netherlands East Indies, and announce that their mission is to secure the area until Dutch authorities arrive to resume their colonial rule.
In Germany, on September 17, Josef Kramer, former SS commandant of the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, and 44 male and female SS personnel on his staffs are brought before a British military tribunal at Lüneburg on charges of conspiracy to commit mass murder. Kramer and 10 others are found guilty and subsequently executed, 19 are given prison terms and 14 are acquitted; one individual is never tried, because of illness. Chinese Nationalist troops occupy Peking. In Batavia, Dutch East Indies, rallies take place supporting Indonesian independence.
In Egypt, on September 18, Mahmoud El Essawy is executed, after Prime Minister Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha confirms the sentence. The 28-year-old lawyer had assassinated the late Egyptian prime minister, Ahmad Maher Pasha, El Nokrashy’s predecessor, on February 24, 1945, moments after Maher announced that Egypt had declared war on the Axis countries.
On September 19, in London, William Joyce, who had broadcast Nazi propaganda as “Lord Haw-Haw,” is sentenced to death for treason. In Korea, Kim Il-sung, after eight years of exile in the Soviet Union, arrives at the northern port of Wonsan aboard the Soviet warship Pugachev and begins organizing the Korean Workers’ Party. In the southern part of the Korean peninsula, U.S. occupation authorities revoke all Japanese laws restricting freedom of religion, assembly, speech and press.
Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru on September 20 demand that all British troops depart India. British Prime Minister Clement Attlee promises independence for India “at the earliest possible date.” In the U.S., German rocket engineers, who had been captured and brought to the U.S., begin to work on America’s rocket program. Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, a senior member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, makes an appeal to the U.S., the U.K., France and the U.S.S.R. for compensation from Germany for crimes against Jews.
Indian leaders Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru and the All-India Congress Party on September 21 demand that all of Southeast Asia should be free of imperialist domination.
British troops on September 22 release 1,400 Vichy French soldiers from former Japanese prison camps around Saigon, Vietnam. Many of the released soldiers enter Saigon and go on a deadly rampage, attacking Viet Minh (anti-French Vietnamese nationalist) supporters and killing innocent civilians, including children. The soldiers are abetted by some of the estimated 20,000 French civilians who live in Saigon, who join in the rampage. In Germany, Gen. George S. Patton, military governor of Bavaria, publicly questions the necessity of the “de-Nazification” program (the removal of former Nazi Party members from political, administrative and governmental positions) being carried out there. Patton likens “this Nazi thing” to “a Democratic and Republican election fight,” offering the opinion that Germans with experience in infrastructure management were forced to join the Nazi Party. The comments spark outrage back in the U.S. and garner a large amount of negative press.
In Cairo, the Egyptian government on September 23 demands that British forces withdraw from the Sudan, an Anglo-Egyptian condominium. The U.K. demurs. (In international law, a condominium is a territory over which two or more countries formally agree to share equal sovereignty and to exercise their rights jointly without dividing the territory.) Per the Potsdam Agreement, Nationalist Chinese soldiers occupy the Kingdom of Laos north of the 16th parallel.
In Tokyo, Japanese Emperor Hirohito says on September 24 that he did not want war; he blames former prime minister Hideki Tojo for the attack on Pearl Harbor. In Saigon, Vietnam, the Viet Minh successfully organize a general strike that shuts down all commerce, along with electricity and water supplies. In a Saigon suburb, members of a Vietnamese criminal organization massacre 150 French and Eurasian civilians, including children, in retaliation for the French rampage in Saigon two days earlier.
On September 25, the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party, the German armed forces (Wehrmacht), the SS, the SA (Sturmabteilung, the Nazi Party’s original paramilitary security force) and the Gestapo are officially declared illegal in Germany by the Four-Power Allied Control Commission. All German foreign affairs will be handled by the Allies. Germans are ordered to turn in all gold, silver and platinum coins and bullion. All items looted from Nazi-conquered countries are also to be turned over. The last Soviet soldier leaves Norwegian territory at 8:55 p.m., local time.
In Washington, D.C., President Truman announces on September 26 that, per a decision at the recent Potsdam Conference, surviving German naval vessels will be divided equally between the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. He notes also that no decision has yet been made on the disposal of what remains of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s fleet. The first American death in Vietnam occurs, in Saigon, as OSS officer Lt. Col. A. Peter Dewey — a distant relative of New York Governor Thomas Dewey — is shot and killed at a roadblock by three Viet Minh guerrillas. Dewey was leading a seven-man team searching for missing American pilots and assessing the condition of the country after the Japanese surrender. The guerrillas say they mistook him for a French officer. Before his death, Dewey had filed a report on the deepening Vietnam crisis, urging that the U.S. “ought to clear out of Southeast Asia.” Dewey becomes the first of more than 38,200 U.S. soldiers (and 58,220 military personnel overall) killed by Hồ Chi Minh’s forces.
Japanese Emperor Hirohito on September 27 visits Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur at the latter’s headquarters in Tokyo. In India, 17 people are killed and 75 injured during religious violence between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay.
On September 28, Gen. of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, military governor of the American Occupation Zone, after a heated argument with Gen. George S. Patton over Patton’s naïve and impolitic de-Nazification comments made on September 22, relieves Patton as military governor of Bavaria. Across Indonesia (technically, the Netherlands East Indies), anti-Dutch riots take place. In India, police in Bombay fire on rioters during the third day of sectarian violence in the city.
British troops land on Java, in the Dutch East Indies, on September 29 to help the Dutch battle Indonesian nationalists. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, an estimated 500,000 conservative protesters — upset by social reforms he had gotten passed — call for the resignation of Juan Perón, the nation’s Vice President, Secretary of War and Minister of Labor.
U.S. Marines of the III Amphibious Corps land at Tientsin, in northern China, on September 30 to disarm 630,000 Japanese troops and participate in the occupation there. In the U.S., “War Time” (year-round Daylight Saving Time) is ended.
The U.S. Office of Strategic Services, known as the OSS, disbands on October 1, 1945. Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis is discharged from the U.S. Army. King Leopold III returns to Belgium from Austria, where he had been exiled by the Germans. A royal proclamation defends his actions during the war (including surrendering to the Germans in 1940 and meeting with Hitler, for example), but his return to the Belgian throne is met with popular resistance.
Gen. George S. Patton is notified by Gen. of the Army Eisenhower’s office on October 2 that he is being removed from command of the U.S. Third Army and will head an Army unit compiling a history of the war in Germany. President Truman receives a gift from an old friend in Missouri: A painted glass sign mounted on a walnut base that says: “The buck stops here.” Truman places it on his desk and refers to it occasionally during his time in office.
The United Nations Executive Committee on October 3 recommends that the organization’s permanent headquarters be located in the U.S., with San Francisco as the most-favored site. Ten-year-old Elvis Presley makes his first public appearance, singing in a contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair & Dairy Show. Dressed as a cowboy, young Elvis stands on a stepstool to reach the microphone. He sings “Old Shep,” and places fifth.
In Paris, the trial of Pierre Laval, former head of state of Vichy France, opens on October 4. The charges: Plotting against the security of the state and collaboration with the enemy. In Japan, Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, orders civil liberties restored within the country. One thousand Dutch troops arrive in Batavia, Netherlands East Indies. Some cities are in the hands of Indonesian nationalist separatists, including Surabaya and Bandung.
