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WWII On This Day: December 1

What happened on December 1 during World War II? This date brings together 5 events from 1939, 1940, 1942 and 1944, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1939
Finnish ski troops moving through forest during the Winter War.
Imperial War Museums, HU 52936 · Public domain · Source
The Winter War

The Terijoki government is proclaimed

A Finnish Democratic Republic headed by Otto Kuusinen was proclaimed at Terijoki after Soviet troops occupied the border town. Moscow quickly recognised the new administration and concluded a treaty with it. The declaration called for the overthrow of the Helsinki government and appealed for Red Army support. The arrangement supplied the invasion with a political project alongside the territorial and security demands discussed in October. The Ryti government in Helsinki continued to command the Finnish state and armed forces. By late January Moscow would reopen a channel to that government…

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1940
German Type IXA submarine U-37 in dock at Lorient in 1940 after the French Atlantic ports became U-boat bases.
Mannewitz · Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MW-1032-11A · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE
The Happy Time and the Wolfpacks

HX 90 shows the pressure has not passed

HX 90 was located on 1 December as several German and Italian submarines operated in the Western Approaches. Over three days eleven merchant ships were sunk and four damaged; a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 also sank a ship from the convoy after submarine attacks had dispersed the battle. The convoy survived and the escorts drove off repeated approaches, but the losses showed that October had not been an isolated collapse. German submarines could still mass on the approaches, while long-range aircraft complicated routing and forced the Admiralty to treat air and…

1942
Red Army soldiers carrying a Soviet flag through the ruins of Stalingrad in 1943.
Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R76619 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
Battle of Stalingrad

Army Group Don prepares a relief attack from Kotelnikovo

Manstein’s new Army Group Don developed a relief plan built around Fourth Panzer Army and LVII Panzer Corps. The strongest available grouping would attack from the Kotelnikovo area toward the southern face of the pocket; a second thrust from the Chir sector remained dependent on forces that were not available in sufficient strength. Sixth Army was told to prepare mobile units near its southwestern perimeter so that it could respond if ordered. The instructions still required the army to hold its existing fronts, including Stalingrad. That condition mattered because a…

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1944
A destitute mother and child on a Calcutta pavement during the Bengal famine of 1943-44.
Kalyani Bhattacharyee and Manoj Sarbadhikar / Bengal Speaks, Servants of Bengal Society · Public domain
World War II Famines

Rations below 1,000 calories

Official rations in the western cities fell below subsistence and eventually to only a few hundred calories a day in the final phase. People made hunger treks into the countryside and relied on sugar beet, tulip bulbs and improvised substitutes as ordinary supplies disappeared. More than 20,000 deaths are commonly attributed directly or indirectly to the Hunger Winter, although totals vary by definition. Its causes included the continuing railway strike, German occupation measures, front-line isolation, fuel shortage and severe winter disruption.

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Infantrymen of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division rest on a slope in the Hürtgen Forest on 18 November 1944.
U.S. Army Signal Corps / National Archives · 18 November 1944 · Public domain · Source
Aachen and the Hürtgen Forest

The 22nd Infantry reaches the far edge

Sixteen days after Operation Queen began, the 22nd Infantry reached the woods line overlooking Gey. It was the first time the regiment had emerged through the width of its assigned forest sector. Barton reported that the regiment had lost offensive capacity. Collins ordered the division's attack halted and relief began on 3 December.

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