This day in history October 7

[Moderator Sinister]

October 7


1943 Japanese execute nearly 100 American prisoners on Wake Island

On this day in 1943, Rear Adm. Shigematsu Sakaibara, commander of the Japanese garrison on the island, orders the execution of 96 Americans POWs, claiming they were trying to make radio contact with U.S. forces.

In late December 1941, the Japanese reinforced existing forces on Wake Island, part of a coral atoll west of Hawaii, in massive numbers after being unable to wrest the island from a small number of Americans troops earlier in the month. The Japanese strength was now overwhelming, and most of those Americans left alive after the battle were taken by the Japanese off the island to POW camps elsewhere. Ninety-six remained behind to be used as forced labor. The Allied response was periodic bombing of the island--but no more land invasions, as part of a larger Allied strategy to leave certain Japanese-occupied islands in the South Pacific to basically starve in isolation.

The execution of those remaining American POWs, who were blindfolded and shot in cold blood, remains one of the more brutal episodes of the war in the Pacific.

[NewtonCain]

The Pols were still getting trampled under boot.

[WotC Bob]

Oct 7, 1940

German troops enter and occupy Romania.

[Moderator Sinister]

Bob,

Read the A&A general this day in history! I posted two of them.

[Sgt Barker]

7 October 1942

In Stalingrad preparations were underway for the assault on the last major area remaining in Soviet hands: the northern industrial district. An area of roughly 2km by 10km housed three huge factory complexes: the Dzerhezinsky Tractor Works to the north, the Red Barricades Gun Factory in the center, and the Red October Factory to the south.

The Dzerhezinsky was “the pride of Russian heavy industry.” Designed in the 30s by the U.S. Ford Motor Company it produced heavy farm equipment. In 1941 it was converted to produce T34s, reputedly at the rate of 10 a day, and as the Germans approached the city tanks would roll off the assembly line, be crewed and driven directly to the front. The Red Barricades complex of concrete and steel produced heavy artillery, and was on the main rail line to the west. The Red October was a “collection of steel foundries and machine shops” that produced armaments of all kinds. All were flanked by workers housing, scrap yards, and rail sidings, and within 300-500m of the Volga river to the east. Bombed throughout the battle many of the heavy buildings were still standing, though their roofs had been blown away. The bombing had strewn rubble over an already inhospitable landscape, and actually created more opportunities for defenders to gain cover and concealment.

A week earlier Adolf Hitler had given orders that Stalingrad was to be conquered by October 15, 1942, and General Paulus, commander of the German 6th Army, scrambled to find reinforcements to fill ranks of his infantry formations depleted over the past weeks of fighting. He knew that the coming battle would consume his soldiers at a high rate.

He probably didn’t suspect how truly staggering that consumption would be, that the days ahead would see attrition at the rate of an entire infantry division destroyed every five days. The coming battle for the factories would forever cement a grim nickname for the battle for Stalingrad: Verdun on the Volga.

[PUNISHER]

Oct 7, 1940

German troops enter and occupy Romania.


I thought Geramny and Romania where allies? :confused:

Or did the German army make them be "allies"......