WWII On This Day: September 16

A young survivor of Athenia being passed ashore from the Norwegian rescue vessel Knute Nelson at Galway following the liner’s sinking on 3 September 1939. — Press Agency photographer · Imperial War Museums HU 51014 · IWM Non-Commercial Licence

September 16, 1939 · 12:00 The Opening Convoy War

The first HX convoy leaves Halifax

HX 1 sails from Halifax with eighteen merchant ships bound for Britain. The Canadian destroyers Saguenay and St. Laurent provide the local escort as the convoy clears the port, and the cruisers Berwick and York meet it in the Atlantic. The convoy reaches Liverpool without loss. The voyage establishes the eastbound HX series that will become one of the principal North Atlantic supply routes for the rest of the war. The escort system is still sectional. Warships cover the most dangerous approaches, while long stretches of the ocean remain beyond…

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Sixteen blindfolded young partisans awaiting execution by German forces at Smederevska Palanka in occupied Serbia, 20 August 1941. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Photograph 13356 / Muzej Revolucije Narodnosti Jugoslavije · Public domain

September 16, 1941 Reprisal and Massacre

Keitel puts exemplary reprisal killing into writing

Wilhelm Keitel circulated an OKW directive calling for severe retaliation against attacks on German troops in occupied territory. The text proposed that the death of one German soldier should normally be answered by the execution of fifty to one hundred people described by the occupiers as Communists. The order expressed a deterrent principle that made uninvolved people available for punishment. Local commands then translated that principle into their own procedures, with occupied Serbia becoming the clearest case of a fixed numerical quota. The importance of the directive lies in the…

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A German infantryman beside a burning Soviet BT-7 tank and a dead Soviet soldier, June 1941. — Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-020-1268-36 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source

September 16, 1941 · 18:00 Operation Barbarossa

The Kyiv encirclement closes

Elements of Guderian's and Kleist's panzer groups met near Lokhvytsia on 16 September, closing the main ring east of Kyiv. Several Soviet armies and the headquarters of Southwestern Front were trapped inside a pocket whose eastern exits had been narrowed over the preceding days. German infantry formations still had to compress an encirclement covering a vast area, while Soviet units attempted to break east in groups and local formations continued fighting around the perimeter. The junction removed Southwestern Front as an organised threat to Army Group Centre's southern flank and…

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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 16, 1942 Battle of Stalingrad

Mamayev Kurgan becomes a contested observation position

By 16 September Soviet and German troops were fighting across the summit and slopes of Mamayev Kurgan. The height overlooked central Stalingrad and offered observation toward the Volga, railway lines and adjoining districts, making it valuable to artillery observers and infantry commanders on both sides. Control of the hill remained unstable. Units reached the crest, were driven back, re-entered trenches and shell holes, and fought over ground already torn apart by artillery. Possession of part of the height did not secure the river crossings or the industrial districts farther north.…

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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 16, 1943 The Italian Armistice and the Landings at Salerno

HMS Warspite is hit by a German guided bomb

HMS Warspite was damaged by a German Fritz X bomb while supporting operations off Salerno on 16 September. The strike disabled major ship functions and forced the battleship to withdraw under tow. British and American warships had helped defend the bridgehead against German armour. Their exposure to air-launched guided bombs showed how the attackers could threaten the fire support that kept land forces supplied and protected.

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September 16, 1943 · 12:00 The Italian Armistice and the Landings at Salerno

Eighth Army columns approach Fifth Army from Calabria

The British Eighth Army continued northward after the Calabria landing, pushing through German demolition zones toward the Fifth Army perimeter. Patrols and advancing units reduced the separation between the two Allied formations. The convergence gave German commanders less room to sustain a major counterattack at Salerno. They prepared to withdraw toward defensible ground in the hills and farther north.

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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 16, 1944 Operation Market Garden

Model settles his headquarters at Oosterbeek

Field Marshal Walter Model, commanding Army Group B, established his headquarters at Hotel Tafelberg in Oosterbeek immediately before the operation. II SS Panzer Corps lay around Arnhem and Doetinchem while recovering from the Normandy fighting. The German formations were depleted, yet the headquarters, communications and mobile remnants were already close to the bridges Market Garden needed. That proximity shortened the time required to issue orders once the landings were identified.

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Men of the 101st Airborne Division moving toward Bastogne on 19 December 1944 as Allied reserves enter the Ardennes battle. — 101st Airborne Division on the road between Bastogne and Houffalize, 19 December 1944 · US Army Signal Corps SC 329953 · NARA · Public domain · Source

September 16, 1944 The Battle of the Bulge

Hitler names the Ardennes

On 16 September Hitler announced the outline of a western counteroffensive through the Ardennes toward Antwerp. The intention was strategic rather than local: cross the Meuse, split the British and American armies and seize the port that had become central to Allied logistics. The idea assumed that a sudden blow could create a political effect larger than the forces committed to it. If the northern Allied armies could be cut off or thrown into crisis, Hitler hoped the western coalition might accept negotiations and release German strength for the war…

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Warsaw Uprising: Two medics and a soldier (right) from "Parasol" battalion after coming out of sewers at Warecka Street near Nowy Świat (North Śródmieście district). In the center Maria Stypułkowska-Chojecka "Kama". On the right Krzysztof Palester "Krzych". — Warsaw Uprising - Soldiers from Parasol on Warecka Street 1 September 1944 · Jerzy Chrzanowski · Public domain · Source

September 16, 1944 The Warsaw Rising

Polish 1st Army crosses the Vistula

During the night of 15–16 September the first substantial Polish 1st Army contingent crossed from Praga into the Czerniaków sector. About 300 men of the 9th Infantry Regiment reached the west bank and joined Home Army defenders around Solec and the river-side streets. The crossing delivered infantry faster than artillery, anti-tank weapons and other heavy support could follow. German attacks therefore struck a narrow bridgehead whose supply and evacuation depended on small craft moving across the Vistula under fire.

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