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WWII On This Day: April 26

What happened on April 26 during World War II? This date brings together 6 events from 1941, 1944 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1941
German paratroops descending over Crete, May 1941.
Bundesarchiv Bild 141-0864 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
The Balkans and Crete

Ultra hands over the plan

Bletchley Park read the German operation order for Crete: the date, the three airfields, the strength and the order of battle. Freyberg was given it under conditions that forbade him from acting in a way that would reveal the source. He also drew the wrong conclusion from part of it, expecting a substantial seaborne landing, and disposed his reserves accordingly. Knowing everything and being unable to use it properly is one of the recurring problems of signals intelligence, and Crete is the clearest case of it in the war.

A reconnaissance detachment of the German 5th Panzer Division entering Athens on 27 April 1941.
Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1979-123-32 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
German Invasion of Greece, April 1941

German airborne troops seize the Corinth isthmus

At 07:00 on 26 April, two battalions of the German 2nd Parachute Regiment with engineers and supporting troops descended around the Corinth Canal. Gliders landed on both sides of the isthmus while paratroops moved on the road-and-rail bridge. German engineers reached the bridge and cut the detonating cord, but a demolition charge exploded during the fighting and destroyed the span. A temporary crossing was built later the same day, restoring movement into the Peloponnese. The airborne operation came after most of the main Commonwealth force had already passed south or…

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1944
A truck-mounted crane and DUKW at a petrol, oil and lubricants dump on Slapton Sands during April 1944 training.
A truck-mounted crane and DUKW at a petrol, oil and lubricants dump on Slapton Sands during April 1944 training. US federal government photograph · Public domain Source
Exercise Tiger

The beach becomes a supply base

The rehearsal continued with fuel, ammunition, vehicles and other sustaining units moving ashore behind the assault formations. Around 1,800 tons of supplies were landed during the support phase, testing the beach organisation that would be required after the first waves at Utah.

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1945
Yevgeny Khaldei's photograph of Soviet soldiers raising a Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin on 2 May 1945.
Yevgeny Khaldei / TASS · 2 May 1945 · CC BY 4.0 via the Russian Ministry of Defence · Source
The Battle of Berlin

Ninth Army starts west

On 26 April Busse's Ninth Army began its breakout toward the Baruth–Zossen road and the routes leading toward Wenck's Twelfth Army. Artillery ammunition was close to exhaustion, and much of the promised air supply had been redirected to Berlin. Higher headquarters continued demanding that Ninth Army turn north and participate in the relief of the capital. Busse and Heinrici instead treated survival of the trapped army as the remaining practicable objective. The Halbe battle was therefore not a relief operation that happened to fail. It became an escape battle through…

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A 203 mm B-4 firing on the approaches to Berlin in April 1945, illustrating the heavy direct-fire weapons brought forward for the city battle.
A 203 mm B-4 firing on the approaches to Berlin in April 1945, illustrating the heavy direct-fire weapons brought forward for the city battle. Mark Redkin · Russian Ministry of Defence · CC BY 4.0 Source
The Battle of Berlin

Assault detachments move inward

From 26 April several Soviet armies pushed through the S-Bahn ring and into the built-up districts. 8th Guards Army advanced from the south, while 5th Shock and 3rd Shock Armies drove from the east and north toward the centre. The assault units combined infantry, engineers, tanks, self-propelled guns and artillery. Streets and canals repeatedly forced the attackers to reduce a local obstacle before the next formation could move, while German Panzerfaust teams remained dangerous wherever armour advanced without close infantry. The city fight was intense without being a second Seelow.…

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The Battle of Berlin

Weidling proposes an organised breakout

As the defended area contracted, Weidling presented Hitler with a plan for the garrison to break west in organised groups rather than be destroyed in place. The proposal assumed that the remaining armour would lead the movement and that the troops would try to reach German forces outside the city. Hitler refused the general plan and chose to remain in Berlin. The decision kept the garrison tied to shrinking sectors even though the military purpose of holding those sectors had largely disappeared. The proposal is often dated loosely in later…

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