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WWII On This Day: April 27

What happened on April 27 during World War II? This date brings together 9 events from 1941, 1944 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1941
German troops and a light armoured vehicle entering Athens after the mainland campaign.
German troops and a light armoured vehicle entering Athens after the mainland campaign. Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-164-0357-29A · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE Source
German Invasion of Greece, April 1941

German troops enter Athens

On the morning of 27 April the first German troops entered Athens after the last Commonwealth rearguards withdrew south of the city. A reconnaissance detachment of 5th Panzer Division was among the formations recorded entering the capital that day. The occupation of Athens marked the loss of the principal political and communications centre on the mainland. The Greek government had already moved toward Crete, while the surviving Commonwealth formations were concentrated around Peloponnesian embarkation points. For the German command, Athens was no longer the end of the pursuit. Mobile units…

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

Athens

German troops entered Athens and raised a flag on the Acropolis. Two teenagers, Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas, climbed up at night at the end of May and took it down, which became the founding act of the Greek resistance. The occupation that followed produced a famine in the winter of 1941 to 1942 in which something in the order of 300,000 people died, largely from requisitioning and a British blockade that was only partly relaxed.

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

Slamat, Diamond and Wryneck are lost during the evacuation

The Dutch troopship Slamat was caught by German air attack after embarking troops from the Peloponnese. The destroyers Diamond and Wryneck remained to rescue survivors and were themselves attacked and sunk later on 27 April. The losses show the vulnerability built into Operation Demon. The Royal Navy could reach the beaches at night, but ships that remained close to Greece after daylight faced Luftwaffe dive bombers without reliable fighter cover. Hundreds of soldiers and sailors were killed across the three sinkings. The disaster reinforced the need for later evacuation groups…

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1944
An M10 tank destroyer, M8 armoured car, deep-wading vehicles, LCTs and LST-325 during an April 1944 landing exercise at Slapton Sands. The Commons record gives April rather than an exact day.
An M10 tank destroyer, M8 armoured car, deep-wading vehicles, LCTs and LST-325 during an April 1944 landing exercise at Slapton Sands. The Commons record gives April rather than an exact day. PhotosNormandie / Conseil Régional de Basse-Normandie / National Archives USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 Source
Exercise Tiger

The original H-hour survives in part of the force

The assault had originally been scheduled for 07:30. Rear Admiral Don Moon postponed it by one hour. The change failed to reach every ship and unit. Company G, 8th Infantry, continued toward the beach on the old timetable.

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American troops landing on a beach in England during Exercise Tiger in April 1944.
U.S. Signal Corps · Library of Congress cph.3c32795 · Public domain · Source
Exercise Tiger

The rescheduled bombardment begins

Naval gunfire began on the revised schedule while Company G was already ashore. The US Army's recent review states that the heavy guns did not hit the company, although some explosions landed dangerously close. The episode exposed a serious communications failure.

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Wrecked rolling stock in the severely damaged marshalling yard at Juvisy-sur-Orge after Allied air attacks in 1944.
Bridge B (Fg Off), Royal Air Force official photographer / Imperial War Museums, CL 4170 · Public domain · Source
The Transportation Plan

The Eighth Air Force begins Transportation Plan missions

Eighth Air Force heavy bombers entered the programme, dropping 342 tons on Blainville and 230 tons on Châlons-sur-Marne. The same day 71 Ninth Air Force A-20s attacked Arras. The target system was now drawing in heavy bombers, medium bombers, light bombers and fighter-bombers.

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Exercise Tiger

The rehearsal exposes weak coordination

Barton and other senior officers found problems in unit leadership, movement and cooperation between the services. That was the purpose of a rehearsal at this scale: reveal failures in England while there was still time to change procedures before Normandy.

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Exercise Tiger

Convoy T-4 moves into Lyme Bay

Eight LSTs carrying follow-up troops, vehicles and supplies sailed in sections from Plymouth and Brixham and formed Convoy T-4. HMS Azalea remained as the direct escort. HMS Scimitar, intended as another escort, was unavailable after damage, and its replacement did not arrive in time.

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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

The defended area contracts

By the evening of 27 April Soviet armies had compressed the German-held area into a narrow east–west strip through the centre and western districts. Communications between sectors were increasingly unreliable and local ammunition shortages were becoming decisive. Flak towers, government buildings and other strongpoints could still dominate their immediate approaches. Their strength did not create a continuous defensive system: Soviet formations could isolate, bypass or reduce them while other armies continued toward the centre. The shrinking perimeter also changed the civilian battle. Water, movement, evacuation and medical care became harder…

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