WWII On This Day: September 12

The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein firing on the Polish depot at Westerplatte, September 1939. — Schleswig-Holstein firing on Westerplatte, 1 September 1939 · Public domain · Source

September 12, 1939 · 14:00 Invasion of Poland 1939

Abbeville confirms a limited western offensive

British and French leaders met at Abbeville on 12 September while the Bzura battle was still underway. France had mobilised and crossed into the Saar, and the conference assessed the next stage of operations against the Westwall. The Allied high command accepted a limited course in the west at that stage of the war. Historians continue to debate the precise legal and operational meaning of the earlier Franco-Polish undertakings; on the battlefield, German forces in Poland remained free from a large-scale western offensive. Polish headquarters continued making decisions from incomplete…

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A German anti-tank gun in position on the Kyiv citadel in September 1941. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-L29208 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE Source

September 12, 1941 · 18:00 Operation Barbarossa

The Kyiv pincers approach one another

Second Panzer Group drove south across the Desna while First Panzer Group moved north from the Kremenchuk bridgehead. The two mobile forces were operating behind the principal armies of Southwestern Front and closing the eastern exits from the Kyiv salient. Kirponos and higher Soviet commanders had repeatedly warned that the salient could be encircled. Stalin continued to hold Kyiv and the Dnieper position while seeking a way to preserve the front, leaving the armies in the salient as the German mobile forces converged behind them. By 12 September the remaining…

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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

September 12, 1942 Battle of Stalingrad

Vasily Chuikov takes command of 62nd Army

Vasily Chuikov assumed command of 62nd Army as German formations reached the inner approaches to Stalingrad. His army held a long, shallow bridgehead with the Volga directly behind it and depended on crossings from the east bank for reinforcements, ammunition and replacement units. Chuikov inherited formations already weakened by the retreat from the Don. He used strongpoints, short local counterattacks and reserves held close to threatened sectors, while artillery on the east bank supported the western-bank defence. The arrangement accepted fragmented positions because a continuous line was increasingly difficult to…

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Lt Gen Mark W. Clark, Fifth Army commander, aboard USS Ancon during the Salerno battle, 12 September 1943 (80-G-87335). U.S. Navy / National Archives · Public domain (U.S. Government) Source

September 12, 1943 The Italian Armistice and the Landings at Salerno

Mark Clark directs reinforcement from aboard USS Ancon

As the beachhead came under growing German pressure, Fifth Army command and the naval headquarters exchanged reports about ammunition, threatened road junctions and the arrival of follow-on forces. Clark inspected and directed operations during the battle, including from USS Ancon. A U.S. Navy photograph documents Clark aboard Ancon on 12 September. The ship’s command facilities connected the army headquarters with the unloading fleet and the guns offshore.

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British troops unloading from landing ship LST 383 on the Salerno coast on 9 September 1943. — Imperial War Museums NA 6630 · British official photograph · Public domain (UK Government)

September 12, 1943 · 12:00 The Italian Armistice and the Landings at Salerno

German Tenth Army begins pressing the Sele corridor

Kesselring and Vietinghoff concentrated German units against the Allied coastal lodgement. Attacks developed toward Battipaglia and the Sele sector, where the separation between British X Corps and U.S. VI Corps offered the prospect of breaking the line. American and British defenders gave ground where necessary and moved artillery onto the threatened approaches. German commanders needed a rapid success before the reinforcement flow from the beaches shifted the balance of strength.

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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

September 12, 1944 Aachen and the Hürtgen Forest

A breach south-east of Aachen

VII Corps crossed the German frontier south-east of Aachen and penetrated the outer West Wall in the Stolberg corridor. The advance exposed routes toward the Roer, but under-strength formations and stretched supply lines prevented the rapid breakthrough expected after the pursuit across France. German units used the pause to reman pillboxes, reorganise fragments and build field positions behind the frontier.

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U.S. Navy LCVPs on a Baie de Cavalaire invasion beach during Operation Dragoon, 15 August 1944, with German prisoners passing behind them. — Baie de Cavalaire invasion beach, 15 August 1944 · U.S. Navy / Naval History and Heritage Command 80-G-59475 · Public domain · Source

September 12, 1944 Operation Dragoon

The Armies From Normandy and Provence Join

Contacts between forces advancing from northern and southern France took place on 11 and 12 September around the Dijon-Autun area. On 12 September elements of the French army from Provence joined Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division at Nod-sur-Seine, while U.S. forces made their own junctions farther west. The link-up ended the operational separation between the two invasions of France. Army Group G was now withdrawing toward the Vosges and the Belfort Gap, and the Allied front in France connected from the northern armies to the Swiss frontier.

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Allied transport aircraft and gliders overhead while paratroops descend over the Netherlands during Operation Market Garden on 17 September 1944. — U.S. Army Air Forces / National Archives, NAID 531308 · Public domain in the United States · Source

September 12, 1944 Operation Market Garden

The airborne force is divided across successive lifts

Transport aircraft, glider capacity, daylight and crew-rest requirements prevented the entire airborne force from arriving in one lift. The plan therefore spread divisions and supporting weapons across successive days. At Arnhem, part of the first day's force had to secure the landing grounds for the next lift while one brigade began the move toward the city. The division entered its first afternoon with combat power divided between the bridge routes and the western landing areas.

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