SEPTEMBER 25 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

SEPTEMBER 25

1939

Massive German Bombing:   At 0800 hours on September 25, 1939, heavy German bombers under the command of Major Wolfram von Richthofen launched the largest bombing ever seen. A total of 560 tons of high explosive bombs and 72 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped on Warsaw, in conjunction with heavy artillery shelling.  The destruction of the center of Warsaw was devastating. The Luftwaffe made about 1,150 sorties in a variety of aircraft, including obsolescent Junkers Ju-52/3m bombers, which dropped 13 percent of the incendiary bombs dropped on one day. Only two Ju-52 bombers were lost. (Polish history refers to this massive bombing as Black Monday.)

1942

RAF Bombing of Gestapo Headquarters.  The British raid called the Oslo Mosquito raid targeted the Gestapo headquarters located in the Victoria Terrasse building in Oslo.  It was carried out by four of the new de Havilland Mosquito aircraft  by No. 105 Squadron. The bombers crossed the North Sea at altitudes of lower than 100 ft in order to evade detection by enemy aircraft. Despite this attempt, they were intercepted by two Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters, causing one of the Allied planes to land.   Each aircraft was armed with four 500 lb bombs with 11 second delayed action fuses. This posed a dangerous situation because at a low level attack the bombs could damage the aircraft that dropped them.  At least four bombs were dropped on the Gestapo HQ however one failed to detonate, while the other three crashed through the opposite wall before exploding. Civilian casualties were 80 killed or injured. (Though the mission did not achieve its main objective, it revealed the existence of the Mosquito plane to the enemy. It went into production in 1941, and by mid-1942 to mid-1943, Mosquito bombers flew high-speed, medium or low-altitude daylight missions against military and industrial targets of German-occupied Europe. By June 1943, Mosquito bombers became the Light Night Strike Force and used as pathfinders for RAF Bomber Command heavy-bomber raids. They also dropped Blockbuster bombs, facetiously nicknamed "cookies" - the bombs weighed 4,000 lb (1,812 kg).  German fighters were powerless to intercept them.)

1944

Operation Market Garden Ended on September 25, 1944 with the failure of the allied mission to cross the Rhine. Now the British troops were trapped in German-occupied territory north of the Lower Rhine in the Netherlands. Operation Berlin was put into immediate action for a night time evacuation of the remaining allied forces before they became encircled by enemy forces. The mission was achieved successfully with the rescue of about 2,400 men of the British Division.


Events during the Warsaw Uprising:  The Nazi Germans sent two captured Polish soldiers of Armia Krajowa (Home Army) to ask that Polish insurgents capitulate and hand over the Mokotow district.  No reply was given. The Germans murdered the injured and staff of hospitals located at 17 Czeczota and Lenartowicza streets in Warsaw.  During the night Polish soldiers, the Delegatura, and civilians withdrew from the Mokotow district by descending underground via the sewers and made their way to the safer area of Srodmiesie district.  Lieutenant Eugeniusz "Brok" Lokajski was killed in the ruins of 129 Marszalkowska Street.  He was a Champion of Poland in the javelin throw and gymnastics, and was at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, but was seriously injured in a training session. He placed 7th with a 66.36 m javelin throw. He was also the photographer of the Warsaw Uprising and took more than a thousand photos of the Uprising. One of his most memorable photos was taken of himself wearing a helmet and holding a little kitten. (The location was in the yard of a bombed out building at 124/128 Mraszalkowska St.(

1953

Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski was imprisoned.  The communist government of Poland arrested Cardinal Wyszynski on September 25, 1953, and imprisoned him at Rywałd. He was later placed under house arrest in Stoczek near Lidzbark Warmiński, in Prudnik near Opole, and in the Komańcza monastery in the Bieszczady Mountains.  At the start of 1953, the government ordered the widespread arrest of Polish priests and Bishops who supported the resistance against Soviet occupation.  The priests were subjected to staged "show trials", and imprisoned unjustly.  While incarcerated, Cardinal Wyszynski was a witness to many of the heinous tortures inflicted on his fellow inmates.