Week 291 - Chiang versus Mountbatten - WW2 - March 23, 1945

Phone call- So Bradley told him, huh? Like how? They made it across with no aerial bombardment, not airborne assault, and not even artillery. Pretty impressive. What did Monty say? You can’t repeat it on television. How are you on television? March 23, 1945 Two weeks ago, the Allies took the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen on the Rhine intact, a remarkable feat that gave them a crossing point of the mighty river, and this week? This week that bridge breaks apart and falls into the Rhine. I’m Indy N

eidell; this is World War Two. Last week in the west the Allies consolidated their bridgehead at Remagen. In the East the Soviets were mainly in the planning phase, though Ivan Konev resumed his Silesian attacks. The German offensive in Hungary came to an abrupt end and Soviet counterattacks began down there, aiming at Vienna. The battle for Mandalay in Burma was on, there was action on Luzon in the Philippines, and on Iwo Jima the Japanese defense zone was growing smaller and smaller. Japanese

Commander there, Tadamichi Kuribayashi, is holed up in what the Americans call Death Valley, 650 meters long and between 300 and 450 wide. That’s all the Japanese hold on Iwo Jima, but it’s criss crossed with canyons, gullies, and tunnels. All week long the American Marines slowly constrict them into an ever-smaller space, with flamethrower tanks using over 30,000 liters of gasoline per day. Tonight, Kuribayashi sends a final radio message to Major Horie on Chichi Jima, “All officers and men of

Chichi Jima, goodbye from Iwo.” I imagine the final act will play out next week. You know, Iwo Jima is the beginning of the Allied campaign to get force within striking range of Japan itself, but Okinawa is to be the centerpiece of this plan. It’s a lot bigger, for starters, and is a thin island in the middle of the Ryukyu Islands, and runs from northeast to southwest, 100 km long and between 3 and 15 across. It’s a bit more than 500 km from the Japanese Home Island Kyushu and pretty much the sa

me distance from Formosa and the Chinese Coast. The plan now is to invade it on April 1st, and there is a huge fleet ready for support. Marc Mitscher has 11 fast carriers and 8 fast battleships, all but one carrier finished after 1941, as well as 3 heavy cruisers and two of the new large cruisers that are almost as big as battleships. “At last the prewar battleships, ten of them, featuring smaller guns than the newer ships, were able to gather in one place for gunfire duty in the land battle, jo

ined by nine heavy cruisers. Supplementing these American forces would be a new British Pacific Fleet, consisting of two battleships, four aircraft carriers, cruiser squadron, destroyer screen, and fleet train, based on the harbor at Manus in the Admiralties.” The Americans are based at Ulithi, but already this week the Philippine Sea is crowded with ships crossing from Guam, Iwo Jima, Leyte, Ulithi, and soon enough, Okinawa. Just over 20 km west of Okinawa lie some islands called the Kerama Ret

to, and the American plan is to hit these first and use them for transferring cargo and for ship repair, and the plan is to hit that first, already next week. That fight may be soon to begin, but another one, the fight for Mandalay, comes to its conclusion this week, which might come as a bit of a surprise since Allied aerial and artillery attacks against the mighty walls of Fort Dufferin made zero progress last week. However, on the 20th, the Japanese appear with white flags and the battle is o

ver. The Japanese attempt to take back Meiktila and restore their supply line down to Rangoon does continue this week, though, and by now the Japanese are close enough to the airfield- which supplies the defenders- that flights in and out have to stop, meaning no more supply and no more reinforcements by air. However, 14th Army Commander Bill Slim’s guys have come up with an alternative; on the 18th, Frank Messervy’s 4th Corps takes the riverhead Myingyan, so they can begin large scale supply by

river, and the corps reserves, the 5th Indian Division, arrive by air the 17th, the day before the flights stop, so there are a lot of fresh Allied troops in the area. But all is not well for Bill Slim and 14th Army. Something I haven’t had time to get into before is this: back on February 23rd, Albert Wedemeyer, Chiang Kai-Shek’s CoS, backed Chiang when he demanded the return of all Chinese and American forces operating in Burma for the Northern Combat Area Command. This means Daniel Sultan’s

X-Force and Sun Li-Jen’s Y-Force, who opened the Burma Road and have been hassling the Japanese and taking towns in the north of Burma lately. “The direct consequence was that any chance of Slim using Sultan’s forces for the advance on Rangoon were gone, but even worse, Kimura could now withdraw all Japanese forces in the north for the campaign against Slim in Central and Southern Burma.” But a bigger deal was that Chiang also demanded that all his troops be flown out on planes of the American 1

0th Air Force. When you consider that 90% of 14th Army’s supplies come in by air, and 75% of that by the American planes, you can see what a disaster that would be for Slim. So Slim goes to Theater Commander Louis Mountbatten, he goes to PM Winston Churchill, and he goes to US Army CoS George Marshall, and Marshall says that those planes would not be recalled from Slim’s use until June 1st or the fall of Rangoon, whichever comes first. Mountbatten decides he needs to go see Chiang, and during th

at visit both Wedemeyer and Ambassador Hurley make themselves scarce and visit Washington. Mountbatten asks Chiang why did he issue the order for the troop recall? Chiang says he doesn’t want to see Chinese forces fighting south of Mandalay. MB says that’s gonna make Slim’s job tougher, and Chiang says well, that’s your problem. MB says, fine, then get your guys out of Burma ASAP because we’re not going to continue feeding them, and we’ll deal with Southeast Asia all by ourselves. Well, this doe

sn’t sit well with Chiang, because he doesn’t want the British in Thailand or Indochina. Yeah, it’s all a mess. And none of it really matters that much to Bill Slim, since he gets to keep his air power for the time being. What does bother him a bit is numbers- the number 7 being reduced to 5; that’s now how many divisions he has for the drive down to Rangoon, since 2nd Division is exhausted and has to go back to India, and 36th in the north is dependent on NCAC logistical support, and they’ve be

en ordered back to China. So while the 10,000 or so casualties 14th Army took taking Mandalay and Meiktila aren’t too bad in the big picture, he’s decided that they key to avoiding as much bloody fighting as possible is speed. So 20th Division has been ordered to chase the weakened Japanese 33rd Army as they retreat, following them and cutting them to pieces from Mandalay to Kyaukse to points south, and eliminating most of their fighting capacity. 19th Division heads for Maymyo right after the f

all of Mandalay, overrunning the garrison by complete surprise, and cutting the railway link between the Japanese in central Burma and those in the north. Slim is very much on the move again. Chiang and Mountbatten’s aren’t the only machinations going on in Allied Command at the moment. Soviet FM Vyacheslav Molotov was told last week that if there were negotiations in Switzerland between the British and Americans and Germans about a surrender in Italy, no Soviet representative would be allowed,

and he his livid. He demands that the Swiss talks be broken off at once and that it is incomprehensible there is not a Soviet presence allowed. On the 21st, British Ambassador to the USSR Archie Kerr tells the Soviets that no such negotiations have taken place, though according to Robert Edsel in “Saving Italy” Karl Wolff, SS Commander in Italy, meets with Lyman Lemnitzer and Terence Airey, American and British Generals, the 15th and 19th to discuss how a surrender in Italy would go. Anyhow, Mol

otov writes back to Kerr the 22nd, “…for two weeks in Berne, behind tche back of the Soviet Union, negotiations between representatives of the German military command on one side and representatives of American and British Command on the other side are conducted. The Soviet government considers this absolutely inadmissible.” He charges that this is not some misunderstand ing, but something far more sinister, an attempt to make a separate peace with Nazi Germany excluding the Soviet Union. Britis

h PM Winston Churchill says not to even reply to such an insulting tone, but do send a copy to the US State Department. This is certainly not over, but the whole thing has repercussions in other areas straight off. See, the Moscow Commission has been meeting to try to implement what was decided about Poland back at Yalta last month. On the 19th, Kerr and US Ambassador to the USSR Averell Harriman present notes to Molotov outlining their position regarding British and American observers in Poland

. Well, on the 23rd, Molotov totally rejects this, and says it’s an insult to the Poles to have outsiders brought in. I wonder what Josef Stalin will have to say about all this? He does have a lot on his plate at the moment, for there is plenty of action on the Eastern Front. Konstantin Rokossovsky’s 2nd Belorussian Front drive toward the Gulf of Danzig finally reaches it today the 23rd at Sopot, which cuts Gdynia off from the main German 2nd Army force at and east of Danzig. Georgy Zhukov’s 1st

Belorussian Front is still assaulting the German bridgehead east of Stettin. Adolf Hitler has ordered 3rd Panzer Army to remain on defense there and has given a couple of its divisions to 9th Army. On the 19th, Hasso von Manteuffel, who Hitler has just appointed to replace Erhard Raus in command of 3rd Panzer Army, tells Hitler that the bridgehead story is over one way or another. They can either pull out and give it up by the end of the day, or lose everything fighting for it tomorrow. Hitler

allows the withdrawal. Meanwhile, Kolberg, which was reached early in the month, but not taken, finally falls the 18th. By this time, its 80,000 civilians and refugees have been evacuated by sea. The left flank of Zhukov’s Front is along the River Oder. Vassily Chuikov’s 8th Guards Army, all 9 divisions, now at full strength deployed between Frankfort and Kustrin. The German garrison at the latter has been isolated by Chuikov’s Army and Nikolai Berzarin’s 5th Shock Army. They’ve linked up and be

gin to assault the town the 22nd, having already taken the surrounding forts of this fortress town. But wait- there was an artillery salute already in Moscow in early February for 5th Shock for taking the town, but in reality they hadn’t taken it and now is the time to try. Ivan Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front attacks that began last week continue. They’re trying to surrou nd Oppeln and the Oppeln Bulge; this they do linking up two assault forces at Neustadt. The Hermann Göring Panzer Division tries

to break out but are stopped by the 10th Guards Tank Corps the 19th. On the 20th, the Germans try a bigger breakout with one Corps and three divisions, and they’re hit and hit bad by three Soviet Corps, with 30,000 Germans falling and 15,000 taken prisoner. Soviet 60th Army is ordered then to take Ratibor, and are given four more tank and mech Corps and two more artillery divisions to do it with. As the week ends they’re on the march with a further two tank corps following behind them. However,

Ivan Petrov’s 4th Ukrainian Front offensive that began last week comes to an end already this week. He calls it off the 17th, just the 8th day of the operation. They’d only advanced like 11 or 12 km and had not opened any breach in there German defenses. Stavka is very unimpressed with this, and even sacks both Petrov and his Chief of Staff, and giving Front Command to Andrey Yeremenko. He starts getting his units ready to resume the attacks. Fyodor Tolbukhin’s 3rd Ukrainian Front drive that be

gan late last week continues, and Rodion Malinovsky’s 2nd joins it as this week begins. On the 17th, Hungarian 3rd Army’s southern flank collapses, and the breakthrough means that the two Fronts have a chance to surround German 6th Army, Malinovsky from the north and Tolbukhin the south. By the evening of the 22nd, they nearly have done so south of Szekesfehervar, with the Germans only holding an escape corridor a bit more than a km wide. Hitler has demanded the town be held, which pretty much m

eans that 6th Army has to stay east of Lake Balaton. “Four panzer divisions and a German infantry division fought fiercely to keep this lifeline open, throwing in tanks to keep the Soviet pincers apart, straining, sweating, infantry fighting agonized actions to keep contact with islands of German soldiers sinking beneath this sea of Soviet attacks. Home was not far away but thousands of German soldiers died in this Hungarian debacle as Tolbukhin rolled on relentlessly.” Szekesfehervar falls and

6th Army spends the next 24 hours running the gauntlet- between the big lake and the Red Army, and yet as the week ends 6th Army has escaped encirclement and is west of the lake. The Soviets have armor superiority, but it isn’t overwhelming, and they’re running out of ammunition, and yet, make no mistake, the Germans have been routed. Hungarian 3rd Army spends this week being destroyed west of Budapest by Soviet 46th army, and Malinovsky is hitting them hard north of the Danube, The German defen

ses are in general on the point of total collapse. “From the commanding General, 6th Army, Balck, came an ominous report. He said the troops were not fighting the way they should. Some were saying the war was lost anyway, and they did not want to be the last to die. All are afraid of being encircled. The loss of confidence was spreading into the higher commands.” Well, I doubt it will restore munch confidence when, on the 19th, Hitler calls Heinz Guderian’s and Albert Speer’s order last week to

not destroy but just render temporarily unusable all infrastructure during withdrawals an error, and calls for a full blown scorched earth policy. But today, when - Gauleiter of Berlin- suggests turning Charlottenburg Chausee into a landing strip, Hitler tells him he can’t cut down the trees lining the boulevard. Also, this week on the 20th, Gotthard Heinrici replaces Heinrich Himmler running AG Vistula. This has to do partly with Guderian, actually. He has proposed his own retirement to Hitler,

and Hitler is pretty okay with it. The Pomerania fiasco has got him on the outs with Adolf at the moment, and while he has evaded direct responsibility- though it was his idea- he has now holed up at his estate, claiming that he’s suffering from angina. So Heinrici is now running AG Vistula, and Hitler has agreed that Guderian can send in the staff of Army Group F to replace Himmler’s staff. “Guderian’s own tenure was nearing an end. Hitler… was waiting impatiently for Wenck to recover sufficie

ntly to assume the duties of Chief of Staff, OKH. Lately, Hitler had indicated that he would have preferred to dispense with conventional military organizations and leadership altogether.” Conventional military leadership is doing its job this week, though, In Italy. On March 18th, 15th Army Group Commander Mark Clark lays out his plans for Operation Grapeshot, the Springtime Allied Offensive in Italy. Phase One is to begin with British 8th Army crossing the Senio and Santerno Rivers and then ma

king two thrusts, one toward Budrio and the other the Argenta Gap. Then US 5th Army will launch the main effort and break into the Po River Valley. Capturing Bologna would be a bonus, but is not a major objective. Phase Two has 8th Army heading for Ferrara and Bondeno, and 5th Army heading past Bologna and linking up with 8th near Bondeno, surrounding the enemy south of the Po. Phase Three is Po bridgeheads and then pushing north. This will go off in a few weeks. And speaking of bridgeheads… Now

, the The Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen was taken by the Allies the 7th before it could be properly blown by the Germans. I say properly because there was at least a small explosion, though the bridge settled, and since then loads of engineers have been making little repairs to completely stabilize Ludy, as she is known. This all comes for naught on the 17th. First one rivet pops, then another, then many, then men begin frantically trying to get off the bridge as steel squeals against steal and t

he center span buckles and twists, and then the whole bridge falls into the Rhine. 28 men are killed and 63 injured. But the bridge, for all that it meant at first, is really no longer necessary; the Allies now have 8 bridges across the Rhine near Remagen, and the Remagen bridgehead is 40 km wide and 12 deep. Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower approves sending 9 divisions from 1st Army across. He wants them to have a common front with units from George Patton’s 3rd Army once they also ju

mp the river. Operation Undertone, of which Patton’s attacks are a part, began last week, and sees serious success this week, basically cutting off German Army Group G from the rear in the ‘Rhine Rat-Race’ into the Saar-Palatinate. They take Mainz the 20th, and by the 21st, three corps from 3rd Army have reached the Rhine. 8th Corps has jumped across the Moselle near the junction with the Rhine and taken Koblenz pretty much without a shot. There were 2,000 or so defenders, but they paddle their

way across the Rhine under a heavy fog. It was pretty much the same at Mainz, and the Germans have blown all the bridges at both. However, at Oppenheim, two battalions from 5th Division cross the Rhine by night and surprise the enemy on the far side, and by the dawn six battalions have crossed. They then ferry across tanks and set up a floating bridge, and within a day the bridgehead is 8 km deep. Patton orders all three corps to head for Giessen and meet up with 1st Army. He also calls 12th Arm

y Group Commander Omar Bradley, informing him, “Brad, we’re across! And you can tell the world 3rd Army made it before Monty!” This Bradley does, “…the American crossing, he informed reporters, had been accomplished without aerial bombardment, without airborne assault, even without artillery fire.” Monty, that’s 21st Army Group Commander Bernard Montgomery, does have a big plan to cross the river, Operation Varsity Plunder- or rather Operations Varsity and Plunder. British PM Winston Churchill i

s excited enough about this that today the 23rd, in uniform, he flies to Venlo on the Dutch-German border to be there to see it in person. Monty has over 1.2 million soldiers lined up on the Rhine in Canadian 1st Army, British 2nd, and US 9th Plunder is to go off first, and is for two British and one American Corps to make an assault river crossing tonight. Then tomorrow the 24th Varsity will begin, and this is a British and American Airborne Corps dropping in on the hopefully stunned enemy. Tha

t’s reverse order from how they’ve done it in the past, if you think about it. There are 60,000 engineers on the river to help in all the ways they can, and 5,500 heavy guns and mortars ready to blast the enemy, who is arrayed around Wesel on the far side of the river. Plunder does indeed go off as this week comes to an end. British and Canadian artillery blasts and blasts, and then British 12th and 30th Corps head across the river in hundreds of assault boats. At 0100 the American attacks begin

, with gunners firing over 1,000 shells a minute for half an hour. Then 16th Corps from US 9th Army- beefed up to a whopping 120,000 men- begins sending their hundreds of assault boats across the river, laden with troops. And how does it go for all this? I guess we’ll find out next week. Something to consider, though, “The spectacular success of Operation Undertone reinforced Eisenhower’s preference for a broad front strategy in the endgame against Germany and undermined his commitment to Operat

ion Plunder as the sole Allied thrust. The collapse of the Wehrmacht in the Saar-Palatinate was evidence that the German army was in crisis and could not hold such an extended front… Army Group G had been shattered and access to central and southern Germany seemed assured.” So on the 19th, Eisenhower gives Omar Bradley the green light for Operation Voyager. US 1st Army will strike for Limburg and link up with Patton. Bradley has been thinking about this since September. The terrain east of Remag

en is no good for mechanized operations, but the autobahn there can quickly send force south to the Lahn River Valley. 1st and 3rd armies can link up and make a hook toward Kassel, which, together with Operation Plunder, would actually surround the whole Ruhr. So once Monty is across the Rhine, Voyager can begin. Bradley authorized Patton’s Rhine crossing as a preliminary to it, by the way. There is finally a German counterattack against Remagen this evening the 23rd, but it’ll be called off tom

orrow because they gotta send force to help the collapsing Army Group G to the south. And with that I will end this week of the war. With two Allied Operations in the west in action, and another two soon to be; advances and plans all along the Eastern Front; Iwo Jima soon to end and Okinawa soon to begin; and Mandalay liberated and the race for Rangoon getting going. And more and varied machinations and maneuvers among Allied command, and Molotov is furious with his Western Allies, and Mountbatt

en is with Chiang. But you have to remember, that for all the work the various Allied nations have done together, all the combined operations, or helping each other with material supplies or money, for all that their goals often happen to align with each other’s, and for all that they can and do present their cause as the ‘noble’ one… when you dig deeper it is unavoidable to see that these are separate nations with separate designs, and like it or not they are very much in it for themselves. If

you wanna see an episode about Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong from 1935, you can click here in a minute for a B2W epiosde we did a few years ago that features the Long March. And to get more content like this and like that, join the TimeGhost Army at Timeghost.tv or patreon.com. Dave Barron is the Army member of the week and these are the newest commissioned officers. Do not forget to subscribe; see you next time.