From left, Chiang Kai-shek, President Franklin Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Cairo in 1943. For more information about Chiang, click on this link.
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.
On September 10, the Wehrmacht occupies Naples and Rome and announces that it is taking over “the protection” of Vatican City. British troops land on the Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean Sea. Twenty-two Italian warships — four battleships, seven cruisers and eleven destroyers — that fled Italy arrive at the British naval base at Malta and surrender to the Royal Navy.
Anti-Nazi Partisans in Yugoslavia on September 11 take over and secure the port city of Split, Croatia, on the Adriatic Sea. Across the Adriatic, British troops reach Brindisi, Italy. In the Atlantic, a German U-boat sets an extensive pattern of mines off the coast of South Carolina. Curiously, the floating weapons never result in damage to any vessel. In the Aegean Sea, the three-day Battle of Rhodes between Italian and German troops that had been on the island — originally as allies — ends in a German victory, with 446 Italians dead and 30,000 taken prisoner.
On August 12, Benito Mussolini, being held prisoner by the Italian government at the Campo Imperiale Hotel atop the Gran Sasso (a high mountain in the Abbruzzo region of central Italy), is rescued by SS Maj. Otto Skorzeny leading a daring glider attack by 100 German commandos and paratroopers. Il Duce is freed and taken to Germany. Hitler signs decrees appropriating Italian industry for German uses, as well as annexing to the Greater German Reich the German-speaking regions of northern Italy. The latter move violates the promise given by Hitler to Mussolini in 1940 that Germany had no territorial ambitions south of the Brenner Pass (the pass through the Alps between Italy and Austria). In Stockholm, Sweden, Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Dekanozov arrives on a secret mission, awaiting a German contact. In Germany, Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop — alerted that the Soviets might be open to discussing possible peace terms with the Third Reich — pleads with Hitler to be allowed to send an envoy to Stockholm to at least hear what terms Stalin might be willing to offer. Hitler refuses and Dekanozov — after waiting four days for someone to show up — returns to Moscow.
In Asia, Chiang Kai-shek on September 13 is elected to a three-year term as President of the Chinese Republic. He retains his post as commander-in-chief of the Chinese Army. In German-occupied northern Italy, an anti-Badoglio, anti-monarchy Republican Fascist Party is established, replacing the National Fascist Party that was banned after Mussolini’s removal. In Berlin, Adolf Hitler tells his aide, Karl Wolff, that he wants Pope Pius XII deported to Germany. Almost simultaneously, Ernst von Weiszacker, Germany’s emissary to the Vatican, delivers “Hitler’s personal assurances” that the city-state’s independence as a sovereign nation will be protected and that its territory within Rome will be exempt from attack. Farther south, a German counterattack pierces the Allies’ perimeter at the Salerno beachhead, but is turned back by a desperate defense about a half mile from the water’s edge.
British troops on September 14 take Bari, a port on the Adriatic Sea in southeastern Italy. American troops land on Sardinia. Albania declares its independence from Italy, which had annexed the Balkan nation in 1939; two German divisions — moved there following the Italian surrender to the Allies — occupy the country.
On September 15, the Australian 7th and 9th Divisions capture Lae, in Papua-New Guinea, after very heavy fighting. Benito Mussolini, from Hitler’s “Wolf’s Lair” headquarters in Rastenburg, Poland, proclaims his return to power and re-establishes fascism in northern Italy. The German-Italian Axis is declared resumed and the death penalty is introduced for Italians carrying arms in German-occupied areas. Despite the Vatican’s neutrality and Hitler’s “personal assurances” of exemption from attack, German paratroopers take position in St. Peter’s Square.
British troops begin landing on Italian-held Greek islands in the Aegean Sea on September 16 — Kos, Leros and Samos are among the first. The Red Army recaptures the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk, Russia, from the Germans.
