WWII On This Day: October 1

Jews subjected to forced labour in occupied Warsaw, autumn 1939. Unknown photographer · public domain in Poland Source

October 1, 1939 Nazi Forced Labour

Conquered Poland becomes a labour reserve

After the conquest of Poland in September 1939 the occupation authorities created the General Government and required Poles and Jews there to work. Polish prisoners of war were put to work in German agriculture, and civilians were recruited or pressed into work in the Reich. Forced labour already had a history in Germany, in the concentration camps from 1933 and in the compulsory work imposed on most Jewish men by 1937. Poland extended it to a whole conquered population, and the system of recruitment, transport and racial regulation that followed…

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Civilians in Artemivsk, occupied Ukraine, wait to be examined before deportation to Germany for forced labour, May 1942. — Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B19880 / Knödler · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE

October 1, 1941 Nazi Forced Labour

Soviet prisoners of war are brought into the labour programme

Nazi leaders had at first rejected the use of Soviet prisoners of war as labour, because they regarded them as racial and political enemies. Shortages of workers in Germany reversed that policy by October 1941, and the army high command issued instructions that Soviet prisoners fit for work should be employed in the interest of the economy. By February 1942 about two million of some 3.4 million Soviet soldiers taken prisoner up to then had already died, and the prisoners reaching German workplaces were almost without exception severely malnourished. The…

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October 1, 1943 Nazi Forced Labour

Concentration-camp prisoners are deployed in German industry on a mass scale

From autumn 1943 concentration-camp prisoners were deployed in German industry in large numbers. At Mittelbau-Dora they worked under brutal conditions in underground factories that produced rockets. Germany faced growing labour shortages and a continuing need for armaments, machinery, aircraft and ships to replace losses, and the SS supplied prisoners to meet the demand.

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Danish Jewish refugees arrive in Sweden on 6 October 1943 after crossing from occupied Denmark. Unknown photographer · Public domain Source

October 1, 1943 The Holocaust: Timeline and Evidence

The planned deportation of Denmark's Jews largely fails

German police began the planned arrest action against Danish Jews after advance warning had allowed most families to go into hiding. Danish resistance members, fishermen, police officers and other civilians helped people reach the coast and cross to neutral Sweden. More than 7,000 Danish Jews and several hundred non-Jewish relatives escaped. About 470 Jews were deported to Theresienstadt. The episode was exceptional in occupied Europe because a broad rescue effort prevented the intended mass deportation.

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Residents of Naples greet Allied troops entering the city on 1 October 1943, photographed on Via San Giovanni a Carbonara. Sgt Gladstone / No. 2 Army Film & Photographic Unit / IWM · Public domain Source

October 1, 1943 The Italian Armistice and the Landings at Salerno

Allied troops enter Naples after the German withdrawal

Fifth Army troops entered Naples on 1 October 1943, following the German withdrawal and the revolt in the city. Civilians greeted Allied soldiers while engineers and naval parties surveyed damaged docks and utilities. Restoring the port was essential for the army’s longer campaign. The beachhead at Salerno had allowed the landing; Naples could provide the permanent unloading capacity required to advance beyond the next river line.

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A converted cable ship laying pipeline across the English Channel, 1944. — Pipeline laying in the Channel, 1944 ·

October 1, 1943 · 12:00 Operation PLUTO

The trunk network reaches the south coast

The Government Pipelines and Storage System was expanded from west-coast ports and storage areas through junctions including Epsom to Dungeness and the Isle of Wight. Pumping stations and control installations were disguised as houses, garages and industrial buildings.

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Men of the 15th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 3rd Division, entering Avellino on 1 October 1943, as the advance continued beyond the Salerno beachhead. U.S. Army Signal Corps SC 180061 · Public domain Source

October 1, 1943 · 15:00 The Italian Armistice and the Landings at Salerno

U.S. infantry moves through Avellino toward Naples and the interior

The 15th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division moved through Avellino on 1 October 1943, as the army consolidated its hold on interior roads beyond the Salerno bridgehead. The movement helped secure routes linking the southern ports with the next German positions. U.S. Army Signal Corps photographers recorded troops entering Avellino that day.

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OSS officers with Draža Mihailović at Pranjani on 6 September 1944 during Operation Halyard. — Unknown photographer · Pranjani, 6 September 1944 · Public domain (PD-Yugoslavia)

October 1, 1944 Operation Halyard

Halyard becomes a moving rescue mission

The team and Chetnik headquarters moved north from Koceljeva, crossed the Drina into Bosnia and continued through the Sava valley toward Trebava and Ozren. The movement reflected the collapse of a stable Chetnik-held base in Serbia as Partisan and Soviet operations transformed the military situation. Nick Lalich's post-mission map traces this route toward the Doboj area and then farther south near Sarajevo. The map on this page follows that documented sequence without pretending the surviving report gives a survey-quality track.

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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

October 1, 1944 World War II Famines

Typhoons and flooding deepen northern Vietnam's food crisis

A poor spring harvest left northern Vietnam vulnerable. From August to October 1944, successive typhoons, exceptional rainfall and flooding damaged large areas of paddy in the Red River Delta and badly affected the crucial late-year rice crop. The north could normally draw rice from surplus areas farther south, but wartime rail and coastal movement were badly disrupted. Japanese military demands, French colonial procurement and Allied attacks directed at Japanese logistics all added pressure to a transport system increasingly unable to correct the regional shortage.

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