WWII On This Day: September 17

September 17, 1939 · 04:40 · Invasion of Poland 1939

The Soviet Union invades from the east

More than six hundred thousand Red Army troops crossed Poland's eastern frontier under the Belorussian and Ukrainian Fronts. Soviet statements claimed that the Polish state had ceased to exist and presented the operation as protection of Ukrainians and Belorussians. The eastern frontier was held by Border Protection Corps units, reserves and formations already moving away from the German advance. Their strength was far below the Soviet concentration, and local fighting developed at places including Grodno, Szack and the approaches to Lwów. The invasion activated the partition arranged with Germany in…

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September 17, 1939 · 18:00 · Invasion of Poland 1939

Rydz-Śmigły orders withdrawal toward Romania and Hungary

Rydz-Śmigły ordered Polish units to move by the shortest available routes toward Romania and Hungary and to engage Soviet forces when the movement or weapons of Polish units came under attack. The directive aimed to preserve personnel for continued service abroad after the south-eastern bridgehead lost its value as a base for prolonged resistance. Romania and Hungary offered the remaining routes through which soldiers could reach France and re-form. Communication reached units unevenly and local commanders faced different conditions. Fighting with Soviet forces developed at Vilnius, Grodno, Szack and elsewhere…

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September 17, 1939 · 20:20 · The Opening Convoy War

U-29 sinks HMS Courageous

HMS Courageous is torpedoed by U-29 while operating southwest of Ireland as part of a carrier-based anti-submarine hunting group. She sinks in about twelve minutes; the Admiralty War Diary records 518 of her complement lost. The Navy has sent large fleet carriers to search areas where U-boats are expected, but the operation exposes the carrier itself to the weapon it is trying to hunt. The loss changes British anti-submarine practice. Fleet carriers are withdrawn from routine submarine-hunting sweeps, and the emphasis moves toward defending merchant traffic with escorts, patrol aircraft…

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September 17, 1939 · 23:00 · Invasion of Poland 1939

The Polish government leaves the country

The president, government and high command crossed into Romania during the night of 17–18 September as Soviet forces advanced into the south-eastern region from which the state had expected to continue directing the campaign. Romanian authorities interned senior Polish officials under German and Soviet pressure. Constitutional succession and political reorganisation therefore shifted quickly to France, where a new government formed under Władysław Sikorski. Polish state continuity now depended on institutions outside occupied territory. Military personnel crossing through Romania and Hungary joined the same process, creating the basis for Polish forces…

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September 17, 1940 · 12:00 · The Battle of Britain

Operation Sea Lion is postponed

Hitler ordered Operation Sea Lion postponed after the Luftwaffe had failed to create the air situation required for an invasion. Preparations and shipping concentrations were reduced rather than converted into an immediate cross-Channel operation. The decision did not mean every German leader regarded the air campaign as finished. Daylight and night bombing continued, and invasion planning was not formally erased from every future contingency on 17 September. What had been decided was more precise: Britain would not be invaded on the planned 1940 timetable. Fighter Command remained capable of contesting…

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September 17, 1941 · 23:00 · Operation Barbarossa

Withdrawal authority reaches Southwestern Front after the ring has closed

After repeated requests and changing instructions, Southwestern Front received authority during 17 September to abandon Kyiv. The main German encirclement had already closed near Lokhvytsia on the previous day. Kirponos's headquarters now had to organise breakout movements through enemy-held routes while communications between armies were deteriorating. Roads that could have supported an earlier withdrawal were already cut or under German fire. Political insistence on holding Kyiv and delays in authorising a general withdrawal left the front attempting escape after its freedom of movement had largely disappeared.

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September 17, 1944 · Operation Market Garden

Flak suppression along the route

Bombers and fighter-bombers attacked flak positions, barracks and known strongpoints along the line of the corridor and around the landing grounds, in clear weather with almost no interference from the Luftwaffe. The airborne armada that followed was the largest ever flown: some 1,500 transport aircraft and 500 gliders, in two streams, in daylight.

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September 17, 1944 · Operation Market Garden

Pathfinders land west of Arnhem

The 21st Independent Parachute Company dropped to mark the landing grounds on the heaths at Renkum and Wolfheze. The marking went almost perfectly and the main lift came in on top of it. The landings themselves were the most accurate of the war to that point. Everything that went wrong at Arnhem went wrong after the men were safely on the ground.

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September 17, 1944 · Operation Market Garden

The main lift comes down

Three divisions landed within twenty minutes of each other along a corridor sixty-four miles long: the US 101st between Son and Veghel, the US 82nd on the Groesbeek heights above Nijmegen, and the British 1st Airborne west of Arnhem. Dutch civilians came out to meet them in numbers, in the belief that liberation had arrived. Many would be dead or displaced within the week.

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September 17, 1944 · Operation Market Garden

The Veghel bridges taken intact

The 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment took the road and rail crossings over the Aa and the Zuid-Willemsvaart at Veghel within half an hour of landing, all four intact. It was the cleanest result of the day and it held. Veghel would still be the point where the corridor was cut five days later.

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September 17, 1944 · Operation Market Garden

Model moves to organise the response

Model saw the airborne landings developing around Oosterbeek and left Hotel Tafelberg for Bittrich's corps headquarters. The first reports did not yet reveal the complete Allied plan, but the scale of the landings made Arnhem and the river crossings immediate command problems. At the corps headquarters, German commanders could allocate mobile elements toward Arnhem and Nijmegen while local security, training and replacement units were gathered into blocking forces around the landing zones and roads.

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September 17, 1944 · Operation Market Garden

XXX Corps crosses the start line

The Irish Guards led the ground advance out of the Neerpelt bridgehead behind a rolling barrage, on a road raised above soft ground with no room to deploy off it. German infantry and anti-tank guns dug in along the verges let the barrage pass over them and then fired into the column at close range. Nine tanks were knocked out in the first few minutes and the advance stopped while infantry cleared the flanks on foot.

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September 17, 1944 · Operation Market Garden

II SS Panzer Corps divides the response

Bittrich directed elements of 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen toward Arnhem and the western approaches, while 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg was ordered south toward Nijmegen and the Waal crossings. The available force consisted of depleted divisions reinforced by training, security and local units. Its experienced headquarters still placed mobile elements at Arnhem and Nijmegen before the Allied ground corridor reached either crossing.

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September 17, 1944 · Operation Market Garden

The Son bridge is blown

The 101st Airborne reached the canal bridge at Son as German engineers fired the demolition. The span dropped into the water in front of the leading platoon. The corridor now had a gap in it eleven miles from the start line, and XXX Corps could not pass until a Bailey bridge was built. The bridging column was many miles back down a single road.

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September 17, 1944 · Operation Market Garden

XXX Corps halts seven miles in

Guards Armoured Division stopped for the night at Valkenswaard after fighting through resistance on the Eindhoven road. The leading force had covered only part of the distance expected for the first day. Eindhoven and the destroyed Son crossing still lay ahead. The delay mattered because every airborne bridgehead farther north was operating on a timetable measured against the arrival of XXX Corps.

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September 17, 1944 · Operation Market Garden

Frost reaches the bridge

Of the three battalion routes into Arnhem, two were blocked in the western suburbs. The southern route along the river carried the 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, under Lieutenant Colonel John Frost, into the north end of the road bridge with about 740 men. Attempts to cross and take the southern end failed against a pillbox and an armoured car. Frost's force dug into the buildings on the northern ramp and waited for the rest of the division and for XXX Corps.

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September 17, 1944 · Operation Market Garden

Communications begin to break down

The airborne radio network performed far below the ranges expected around Arnhem. Wooded ground, urban cover, separation between units and equipment or frequency problems all contributed to unreliable links between divisional headquarters and the advancing brigades. The loss of dependable communication made an already fragmented battle harder to control and complicated air resupply, but it operated alongside other problems: distant landing zones, German counterattacks, delayed lifts and the slow advance of XXX Corps.

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September 17, 1944 · World War II Famines

The railway strike and German retaliation

As Operation Market Garden began, the Dutch government in exile called a national railway strike to obstruct German military movement. After the Allied advance failed to liberate the western Netherlands, the German occupation administration retaliated by restricting food and fuel transport into the western provinces. The restrictions were not maintained unchanged until May 1945, but the supply system never recovered. The strike continued, the front divided the country, fuel shortages crippled barges and rail movement, and winter weather froze waterways. German retaliation was a major part of the crisis, not…

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September 17, 1944 · 15:00 · Operation Halyard

Two C-47s use the emergency strip at Koceljeva

Partisan pressure on Chetnik forces around western Serbia forced the rescue unit away from Pranjani. A small emergency strip near Koceljeva became the next pickup point. Leary records Diles, six crewmates and thirteen other downed airmen leaving on two C-47s that afternoon. The meadow sloped downhill toward trees, leaving the pilots little margin for error. Local research records additional non-aircrew personnel in the same evacuation, which is another reason stage totals differ among later accounts.

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