November 1944

November 12, 1944 (Sunday)

• Over 10,000 Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tatars, and some White Russians rally in
  Second East Turkistan Republic
  .
• RAF Bomber Command carried out Operation Catechism and, after trying unsuccessfully for months, finally sank the German battleship Tirpitz near Tromsø.
• 80,000 leftists demonstrated in Rome in celebration of the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and denounced the monarchy.^[3]
• Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor hit #1 on the New York Times Fiction Best Sellers list.
• Born: Booker T. Jones, musician, record producer and frontman of Booker T. & the M.G.'s, in Memphis, Tennessee; Al Michaels, sportscaster, in Brooklyn, New York
• Died:
  George F. Houston
  , 48, American film actor (heart attack)

November 13, 1944 (Monday)

• The Bulgarian 1st Army captured Skopje.^[15]
• The Japanese destroyers
  Cavite Naval Yard in Manila, while destroyer Okinami
  was sunk 8 nautical miles west of the city.
• Japanese submarine I-12 was hedgehogged and sunk east of Hawaii by American warships.
• Civil air service returned to London for the first time since September 1939.^[5]
• Born: Ron Harris – England association football player' in London Metropolitan Borough of Hackney.^{[citation needed]}

• The British Second Army captured Wessem.^[19]
• Japanese aircraft carrier Shin'yō was torpedoed and sunk in the Yellow Sea by the American submarine Spadefish.
• While part of
  Picuda
  . Some 3,856 lives were lost in one of the highest maritime casualty counts of the war.
• Born: Gene Clark, singer, songwriter and founding member of The Byrds, in Tipton, Missouri (d. 1991); Danny DeVito, actor and filmmaker, in Neptune Township, New Jersey; Rem Koolhaas, architect and urban planner, in Rotterdam, Netherlands; Lorne Michaels, television and film producer, in Toronto, Canada; Tom Seaver, baseball player, in Fresno, California (d. 2020)

November 18, 1944 (Saturday)

• During the Battle of Metz, American forces entered Metz itself.
• Japanese submarine I-41 was sunk off Leyte by American warships and aircraft.
• More Fun Comics issue #101 was published (cover date Jan-Feb), featuring the first appearance of Superboy.^[20]
• The Popular Socialist Youth organization was founded in Cuba.
• Born: Wolfgang Joop, fashion designer, in Potsdam, Germany

November 19, 1944 (Sunday)

• The British Second Army captured Geilenkirchen.^[21]
• The American submarine Sculpin was scuttled off Truk after being damaged by Japanese destroyer Yamagumo.
• Born: Dennis Hull, ice hockey player, in Pointe Anne, Ontario, Canada

November 20, 1944 (Monday)

• Adolf Hitler left his Eastern Front headquarters, the Wolfsschanze ("Wolf's Lair"), for the last time as the Red Army approached the borders of Germany.
• The Kosovo Operation ended in Partisan victory.
• The London districts of Piccadilly, the Strand and Fleet Street turned their lights on after five years of blackout.^[13]
• English author P. G. Wodehouse, who had made broadcasts over enemy radio in France during the Nazi occupation, was arrested in Paris.^[13]
• The American oil tanker Mississinewa was sunk off Ulithi, Micronesia by a Japanese Kaiten manned torpedo.
• Born: Louie Dampier, Hall of Fame basketball player, in Indianapolis, Indiana; Earl Monroe, Hall of Fame basketball player in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

November 21, 1944 (Tuesday)

• The French 1st Army captured Belfort.^[5]
• The Japanese battlecruiser Kongō and destroyer Urwakaze were torpedoed and sunk in the South China Sea by American submarine USS Sealion.
• Born: Dick Durbin, politician, in East St. Louis, Illinois; Harold Ramis, actor, director, writer and comedian, in Chicago, Illinois (d. 2014)

November 22, 1944 (Wednesday)

• Operation Clipper ended in Allied victory.
• Canadian Parliament assembled in a special meeting to debate the conscription crisis. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King said that it had not become necessary to require drafted troops to serve overseas and that to do so "would occasion the most serious controversy that could arise in Canada. I can think of no course fraught with greater danger to our war effort, to say nothing of the unity and strength of Canada today and for generations to come, than a general election at this late stage of the war on the conscription issue. Until it is apparent conscription for overseas forces is necessary, the government would not be justified in taking the risk of widespread national dissention."^[1]
• The British submarine
  Stratagem was depth charged and sunk in the Strait of Malacca
  by the Japanese submarine chaser CH 35.
• The film Henry V, adapted from the William Shakespeare play of the same name premiered in the United Kingdom. The film starred Laurence Olivier, who also directed.
• The musical film Meet Me in St. Louis starring Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien premiered in St. Louis, Missouri.
• Died: Joseph Caillaux, 81, French politician; Arthur Eddington, 61, English astronomer, physicist and mathematician

November 23, 1944 (Thursday)

• French forces effected the symbolically important Liberation of Strasbourg.
• U.S. troops liberated the
  Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in France.^[22]
• The Canadian cabinet made 16,000 conscripts available for overseas duty.[3]

November 24, 1944 (Friday)

• The Battle of Guilin–Liuzhou during the Second Sino-Japanese War ended in Japanese victory.
• The
  Moonsund Landing Operation
  ended in Soviet victory.
• The government of Ferenc Szálasi in Hungary fled Budapest to escape encirclement by the Soviets and re-established itself in Sopron.^[23]
• The
  Terrace Mutiny began when Canadian soldiers based in Terrace, British Columbia
  began disobeying orders and seizing weapons after hearing rumors that conscripts might be deployed overseas. The mutiny was largely censored by authorities and it did not come to be well known by the general public.
• About 1,000 Canadian soldiers from the military camp in Vernon, British Columbia paraded through the city shouting, "Down with conscription."^[24]
• Born: Candy Darling, transgender actress and Warhol Superstar, née James Lawrence Slattery in Forest Hills, Queens, New York (d. 1974); Ibrahim Gambari, scholar and diplomat, in Ilorin, Nigeria

November 25, 1944 (Saturday)

• A German V-2 rocket struck the intersection of High Holborn and Chancery Lane in the Holborn section of London, killing 6 and wounding 292. Then, in the worst V-2 attack of the war, another one landed across the street from the Woolworths department store in New Cross, South London and killed 168.^[5][25]
• German submarine
  Ascension
  .
• The Canadian corvette Shawinigan was torpedoed and sunk in the Cabot Strait by German submarine U-1228.
• Japanese cruiser Yasoshima (formerly the Chinese cruiser Ping Hai) was bombed and sunk in Drusol Bay, Luzon by American aircraft.
• Japanese cruiser Kumano was sunk at Santa Cruz, Philippines by American aircraft.
• Japanese destroyer Shimotsuki was torpedoed and sunk northeast of Singapore by the American submarine Cavalla.
• Born: Ben Stein, writer, lawyer, actor and commentator, in Washington, D.C.; Michael Kijana Wamalwa, 8th Vice President of Kenya, in Sosio, Kenya (d. 2003)
• Died: Kenesaw Mountain Landis, 78, American judge and the first Commissioner of Baseball

November 26, 1944 (Sunday)

• The
  U.S. Seventh Army captured Steige and Villé.^[26]
• Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of the crematoria at Auschwitz concentration camp to eliminate evidence of the mass killings there.^[5]
• Died: Florence Foster Jenkins, 76, American socialite and amateur operatic soprano famous for her lack of singing ability.

November 27, 1944 (Monday)

• The Battle of Peleliu ended in American victory.
• RAF Fauld explosion: A military accident occurred at the RAF Fauld underground munitions storage depot east of Hanbury, Staffordshire, killing about 70 people.
• The Norwegian prisoner ship Rigel was bombed and sunk in the Norwegian Sea by Fairey Barracuda aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm. 2,571 people were killed.
• German submarine U-479 was sunk by a Soviet naval mine in the Gulf of Finland.
• A
  V-2 flying bomb killed 157 people in Antwerp.^[3]

November 28, 1944 (Tuesday)

• The Allies began to operate the port of Antwerp.^[5]
• The 57th Army of the 3rd Ukrainian Front captured the Hungarian town of Mohács.^[27]
• German submarine U-80 was lost with all hands in a diving accident off Pillau.

November 29, 1944 (Wednesday)

• The Battle of Batina ended in Allied victory.
• Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano was torpedoed and sunk southeast of Kushimoto by the American submarine Archerfish.
• The
  Terrace Mutiny ended when officers led by George Pearkes
  restored order.
• French Canadian nationalist René Chaloult said during a political meeting that Quebec should secede from Canada if the province was not allowed to decide its own policies on conscription.^[28]
• The liberation of Albania is completed as the National Liberation Movement of Albania reconquers Shkodër.
• The first Blalock–Thomas–Taussig shunt was performed in Baltimore. ^[29]

November 30, 1944 (Thursday)

• The 53rd Army of the 2nd Ukrainian Front took the Hungarian city of Eger.^[30]
• A German V-2 rocket struck Shooter's Hill in South East London at 1:00 a.m., killing 23.^[5]
• Born:
  George Graham, footballer and manager, in Bargeddie, Scotland
• Died: Eoin O'Duffy, 52, Irish political activist, soldier and police commissioner

References