Vanguard WW2

3 star French general, Gustave Mesny, was executed on this day in reprisal for the shooting of a German general in October 1944 at the hands of FFI fighters. He had been a POW since May 1940. His son Louis, also died in a concentration camp.

18 January 1945
French secret agents Eugénie Djendi (21), Marie-Louise Cloarec (27), Pierrette Louin (24) and Suzanne Mertzizen (25) are hanged at the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp. They were 'Merlinette' SSMF-TR radio operators captured after being parachuted into France in 1944.

The following day, the Germans were back and began reprisals against civilians and those they suspected of being in the Resistance. Allied bombardment by air and by artillery added to the toll. 189 would perish before the town was liberated a second time. The eldest was 87 and the youngest just 1.

Battle of the Bulge
Units of the US 1st and 3rd Armies link up at the battered town of Houffalize - it will be cleared of the enemy the next day. Liberated on 10 Sept 1944, its inhabitants had watched in fear as US units withdrew through in the face of the German offensive launched on 16 December.

After the battle
The city of Caen, Normandy. Winter 1945.

Speirs would take over command of Easy Company for the rest of the war. The village still bears some of the scars of the fighting. 4/4

Spotted by an enemy that can't quite believe what they are seeing, he then runs back again and proceeds to lead the pinned down men he had just left in the attack on Foy. Contrary to what is portrayed in the series, Dike was not killed at Foy. 3/4

Dike makes bad tactical decisions leading to casualties and freezes. The battalion XO, Captain Richard 'Dick' Winters sends in Scottish-born 1st Lt Ronald Spiers. In a scene made famous in the Band of Brothers series, Spiers runs through the village to convey orders to a platoon on the flank. 2/4

14 January 1944 - Bastogne sector 09.00 hrs
The 506th PIR (101st Airborne) attack and take the village of Foy near Bastogne. Easy Company, led by Lt Norman Dike, assaults from its positions in Bois Jacques overlooking the village. 1/4

The last roll of the dice
16 December 1944 - German forces launch a surprise offensive in the Ardennes sector across a 130-kilometre front.

16 December 1944
It is mid afternoon in the Belgian port of Antwerp and a crowded Rex Cinema is showing Cecil B. DeMille's 1936 western, "The Plainsman". A V-2 rocket crashes through the roof and detonates. The death toll is horrendous - 567 have perished, including 296 Allied servicemen.

Major Glenn Miller who disappeared somewhere over the English Channel on this day eighty years ago.

A big cat in Bastogne this afternoon.

French Resistance member, Léon Ludot, who died at the Neuengamme concentration camp eighty years ago this day. He began resisting in spring 43, distributing leaflets and then moving on to sabotage, namely that of trains.

Notre Dame de Paris is reborn and Paris is Paris again.

Sgt. De Sales Glover already had six missions under his belt as a gunner on board the B-24 Liberator 'Big-Time Operator. He let slip to his crew mates that he was only 16, having enlisted in 1942 at the age of 14. He was 'retired' after the USAAF discovered his true age.

Ghosts of D-Day
A relic 2nd Rangers helmet from the Omaha Beach sector.

80 years ago today, the Home Guard was stood down. Activated just days after the German offensive in the West in May 1940, it had formed a home defence force during the darkest days of the war.

What a fabulous badge... Vive le Tigre.

On the morning of 1 December, still active Senegalese troops, French gendarmes and a tank entered the camp and shooting broke out. 24 dead and 45 wounded lay on the ground, with another 11 later dying of wounds. The true number of dead has never been established. 6/6

Also, at Thiaroye, the men did not receive their back pay and demob clothes that had been promised to them in metropolitan France. Tensions grew and a visiting French general received a hostile reception at the camp on 28 November. 5/6

The liberation of France in 44 also saw these camps overrun and the prisoners freed . The Senegalese soldiers embarked from Morlaix to the transit camp of Thiaroye, experiencing harsh living conditions and poor rations on board. Tensions began to rise. 4/6

The Nazis didn't want black troops to be held in Germany (propaganda remained from the Saar and Rhineland occupations after WW1 and the 1935 race laws) mainly to protect their 'Aryan' women, so they were held in frontstalag in France. 3/6

Following the fall of France in June 1940, many French colonial troops fell into German hands, with many being summarily shot - those who were spared were interned in camps... 2/6

1 December 1944, French forces open fire on their Senegalese brothers in arms in Thiaroye, a suburb to the east of Dakar. Events unfolded thus... 1/6

Brossolette threw himself from the top window to avoid breaking under torture. An immense hero.

His jeep skidded off a bridge in the Vosges.

A nice second front to drain resources away from Ukraine.

I went there in the summer of 2023 - I recall seeing a Marauder (Flak Bait)? It is an amazing museum.

when, faced with their own manpower issues, the commander of the armed forces, General Mannerheim, sues for a peace deal while his country still retains some bargaining power. The Moscow Peace Treaty sees Finland ceding 9% of its land to its aggressive neighbour. 2/2