October 1944

October 6, 1944 (Friday)

• The Dutch submarine Zwaardvisch torpedoed and sank German submarine U-168 in the Java Sea.
• collaborationist puppet state of the Axis powers, the Government of National Salvation, fled from Belgrade in Nazi-occupied Serbia
  by air together with other Serbian collaborators and German officials, via Hungary to Austria.
• The Battle of Debrecen began in Hungary.
• The Dumbarton Oaks Conference concluded.
• Born: Mylon LeFevre, singer, in Gulfport, Mississippi (d. 2023)

October 7, 1944 (Saturday)

• The Dumbarton Oaks Conference concluded.
• Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon signed the Alexandria Protocol, leading to the establishment of the Arab League on March 22, 1945.
• The Red Army began the
  Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive
  against Axis forces in Finland and Norway.
• On the
  Italian front, the V Corps of the British Eighth Army launched an offensive beyond the river Rubicon.^[14]
• Sonderkommando revolt: The Sonderkommando (Nazi death camp prisoners deployed to remove corpses from the gas chambers and burn them) at Auschwitz-Birkenau revolted with makeshift weapons. Three SS guards were killed, but more than 200 members of the Sonderkommando died in the fighting. Hundreds of prisoners escaped but were all soon captured and executed.
• "
  Mills Brothers topped the Billboard
  singles charts.
• Dead: Arnaldo Faustin, 72, Italian polar geographer.

October 8, 1944 (Sunday)

• The Battle of Crucifix Hill was fought outside the German village of Haaren, resulting in American victory.
• The Battle of Tehumardi was fought at night on the Estonian island of Saaremaa between retreating German troops and a Soviet Estonian rifle division. Both sides fought blindly, firing into the darkness or feeling for the enemy by touch.^[15]
• The Battle of Tornio ended in German retreat.
• The Battle of Turda ended in Romanian-Soviet victory.
• Battle of the Nijmegen salient ended - the Germans were unable to recover lost ground taken by the Allies during Operation Market Garden.
• Sir William Jowitt was appointed Britain's first Minister of National Insurance.^[10]
• Died:
  heart attack
  ).

October 9, 1944 (Monday)

• The Fourth Moscow Conference began. Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and U.S. ambassador W. Averell Harriman met to discuss the future of Europe.
• Operation Loyton ended.
• During the Battle of the Scheldt, the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade made an amphibious landing on the south bank of the Western Scheldt.^[16]
• The
  St. Louis Browns 3-1 to win the 1944 World Series
  , four games to two.
• Born: John Entwistle, bass player for The Who, in Chiswick, London, England (d. 2002); Nona Hendryx, musician, in Trenton, New Jersey

October 10, 1944 (Tuesday)

• Six Japanese midget submarines were bombed and sunk at Unten,
  Okinawa by Grumman F6F Hellcats from the carrier USS Bunker Hill.^[17]
• Allied commando unit Z Special Unit began Operation Rimau, an attack on Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbor.
• Porajmos: 800 Romani children were murdered at Auschwitz.^[18]
• A delegation of Austrian industrialists and officers asked Reichsstatthalter Baldur von Schirach to declare Vienna an open city.^[19]
• On the Italian front, while the Wehrmacht stopped the offensive of the II American Corp on the Bologna Apennines in Livergnano, the V English Corp passed the Rubicon and conquers Longiano and Savignano.^[20]
• In Genoa, the explosion of a German ammunition deposit in the San Benigno quarter (caused by lightning or, according to some never confirmed theories, by a partisan attack) caused hundreds of deaths. The victims included German soldiers, Genoese civilians living in the area and refugees in air-raid shelters.
• In
  novels. The town became the most important urban center freed by the Resistance's forces, before being reconquered by the Fascists a month later.^[21]
• Ramón Grau took office as President of Cuba.

October 11, 1944 (Wednesday)

• The U.S. Air Force bombed
  Okinawa.^[22]
• The Soviets annexed the Tuvan People's Republic.
• The Soviet 2nd Ukrainian Front captured Cluj and Szeged.^[23]
• A secret Hungarian delegation signed a ceasefire agreement in Moscow. Hungary agreed to declare war on Germany and give up all territory gained since 1937.^[6]
• Italian front: While the tenacious opposition of the Wehrmacht stopped the American offensive on the Boronia hills in Livergnano and at Monte Battaglia, on Romagna the British, Indian and Canadian troops passed the Rubicon at many points, directed to Cesena; the New Zealanders conquered Gatteo.^[24]
• The film noir Laura directed by Otto Preminger and starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews was released.
• The Howard Hawks-directed wartime romance/adventure film To Have and Have Not starring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan and Lauren Bacall (in her film debut) premiered in New York City.
• Died:
  Fritz Feßmann, 30, German military officer (killed near Tilsit
  by a Soviet shell)

October 12, 1944 (Thursday)

• The Battle of Rovaniemi began between German and Finnish forces.
• The British destroyer Loyal struck a mine in the Tyrrhenian Sea and was rendered a constructive total loss.
• The attacks of the American Fifth Army were stopped at Mount Cavallara; the offensive to Bologna was temporarily suspended, at 20 kilometres (12 mi) by the target.^[25]
• Canadian Arctic explorer Henry Larsen reached Vancouver after sailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia through the Northwest Passage in just 86 days.^[26]
• Born:
  • Renzo Imbeni, Italian Communist politician, Mayor of Bologna, in Bologna. (d. 2005)
  • Angela Rippon, British television presenter in Plymouth, England
• Died: Alfredo Di Dio, 24, Italian Catholic partisan, commander of the Brigate Fiamme Verdi (Green Flames Brigades), fallen in the combat for the defense of the Ossola Republic; Andrew Haldane, 27, U.S. Marine (killed during the Battle of Peleliu); Jack J. Pendleton, 26, U.S. Army soldier and recipient of the Medal of Honor (killed in action at Bardebnerg, Germany)

October 13, 1944 (Friday)

• Allied forces liberated Athens from German occupation.^[9]
• The Germans launched V-1 and V-2 flying bombs at Antwerp in an attempt to deny use of its crucial port to the Allies.^[27]
• The Battle of Rovaniemi in Finland ended in German retreat.^[28][29]
• Assault on
  Black Watch of Canada in the Netherlands ends in disaster. This event has come to be known as Black Friday by the Black Watch.^[30][31]

October 14, 1944 (Saturday)

• German forces withdrew from Niš.^[32]
• In Italy, the American Fifth Army had some success on the Apennine front; a South African division entered Grizzana, and the German Army left Livergnano. In Romagna, the Polish II Corps went into action.^[33]
• The German and Fascist troops reconquered Domodossola, which for forty days had been the capital of an independent republic, ruled by the partisans and the antifascist parties.^[34]
• The Canadian frigate
  Gulf of Saint Lawrence by German submarine U-1223
  and rendered a constructive total loss.
• "I'll Walk Alone" by Dinah Shore hit #1 on the Billboard singles charts.
• Born: Udo Kier, actor, in Cologne, Germany
• Died: Erwin Rommel, 52, German field marshal (allowed to commit suicide by the Nazis rather than face trial and reprisals against his family for his knowledge of the July Bomb Plot)

• The most intense fighting of the
  St. Lo and destroyers Hoel and Johnston. The St. Lo was the first of 47 ships to be sunk by kamikaze attacks during the war.^[47]
• Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive: the 14th Army of the Soviet Karelian Front captured the Norwegian town of Kirkenes.^[48]
• The American submarine Tang was sunk by one of her own torpedoes near Formosa.
• The Allies officially recognized the Italian government under Ivanoe Bonomi.^[6]
• Florence Foster Jenkins, the amateur operatic soprano known for her lack of singing ability, made her first proper public appearance at a sold-out Carnegie Hall.
• Born: Kati Kovács, singer, and actress, in Verpelét, Hungary

October 26, 1944 (Thursday)

• The Battle of Leyte Gulf ended in decisive Allied victory. On the final day of the battle the Japanese lost the cruisers Abukuma, Kinu and Noshiro, destroyers Hayashimo, Nowaki and Uranami and submarine I-26
• Died: Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom, 87, youngest child of Queen Victoria; Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, 24, Japanese flying ace (shot down over Mindoro, Philippines in a transport plane in which he was riding as a passenger); William Temple, 63, Archbishop of Canterbury

October 27, 1944 (Friday)

• The Gumbinnen Operation ended in Soviet failure due to strong resistance by the Wehrmacht.
• The Japanese destroyers Fujinami and Shiranui were sunk north of Oloilo, Panay by U.S. aircraft.
• German submarine U-1060 was damaged in the North Sea by British aircraft and was grounded and wrecked near Brønnøysund.
• German forces captured Banská Bystrica, the center of anti-Nazi opposition in Slovakia, bringing the Slovak National Uprising to an end.
• Died: Walter Reed Weaver, 59, American major general

October 28, 1944 (Saturday)

• Japanese submarine I-45 torpedoed and sank the American destroyer escort USS Eversole (DE-404) in Leyte Gulf.
• Bulgaria signed an armistice with the Western Allies.^[6]
• The Battle of the Dukla Pass ended indecisively.
• The Slovak National Uprising was put down by Axis forces.
• Charles de Gaulle ordered the French Resistance to disarm.^[10]
• A V-1 flying bomb killed 71 people in Antwerp.^[6]
• Born: Dennis Franz, actor, in Chicago, Illinois^[49]
• Died: Kurt Gerron, 47, German actor, film director (murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp)

October 29, 1944 (Sunday)

• Soviet and Romanian forces began the
  Budapest Offensive
  .
• The
  Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive
  ended in Soviet victory.
• The Battle of Debrecen ended inconclusively.
• RAF Bomber Command carried out Operation Obviate aimed at sinking the German battleship Tirpitz at Tromsø. The attack was foiled by cloud cover and the bombs caused only minor damage.
• Reichsführer SS
  Auschwitz
  and other extermination camps
• The Finnish People's Democratic League was founded.
• National Broadcasting Company
  broadcasts the first Jewish religious service from occupied Germany from Aachen, Germany

October 30, 1944 (Monday)

• The British Eighth Army reached Forlì. The Allied advance in Italy had slowed considerably in recent days and time was running out to realize the objective of taking Bologna before winter.^[1]
• The U.S. Third Army completed the capture of Maizières-lès-Metz.^[50]
• Finnish forces captured Muonio in northern Finland.^[50]
• The Greek government banned the leftist militia group
  ELAS.^[50]
• Born: Ahmed Chalabi, politician, in Kadhimiya, Iraq (d. 2015)

October 31, 1944 (Tuesday)

• 25 British Mosquito planes carried out the successful Aarhus Air Raid targeting the Gestapo headquarters at Aarhus University in Denmark.
• The last German forces evacuated Salonika ahead of the arrival of a force of the British Special Boat Service. German vessels in the port were also scuttled, removing the last Kriegsmarine presence in the Aegean Sea.^[51]
• French serial killer Marcel Petiot was apprehended at a Paris Métro station when he was recognized despite having grown a beard.^[52]
• Died: Henrietta Crosman, 83, American stage and film actress; Russell Foskett, 27, Australian aviator and flying ace (plane crash in the Aegean Sea)

References