NOVEMBER 2
1938
The First Vienna Award was signed on November 2, 1938, a treaty between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy that was a direct result of the Munich Agreement in the previous month. The treaty established the partitioning of Czechoslovakia which separated the Magyar-populated territories in southern Slovakia and southern Carpathian Rus from Czechoslovakia, granting them to Hungary. Thus Hungary regained some of the territories in present-day Slovakia and Ukraine which had been lost in the Treaty of Trianon in the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. In mid-March 1939, Adolf Hitler granted Hungary permission to occupy the remainder of Carpatho-Ukraine,which extended its territory further north up to the Polish border. This created a common Hungarian-Polish border, which had once existed, prior to the 18th-century Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In September 1939 when German invaded Poland, the Polish government and a large part of its military evacuated Poland, escaping to Hungary and Romania, and from there to France to continue fighting against the Nazis. (nb: After World War II, the First Vienna Award was declare null and void, at the 1947 Treaty of Paris.)
1940
Greek Hero and Legend of WW2: Marinos Mitralexis was a Greek Air Force pilot, and hero. During battle, when he ran out of ammunition, he used his plane to ram into the tail of an enemy bomber. Upon landing his plane, Mitralexis captured the Italian crew that had parachuted to safety. It was one of the most extraordinary aviation event in World War Two! Mitralexis was praised by his countrymen as a war hero and was decorated with numerous medals, including the Gold Cross of Valour, Greece's highest award for bravery. When Greece capitulated to Germany (April 1941) he and the rest of the surviving Greek Air Force personnel and aircraft escaped to North Africa and joined the Allied forces. (nb. Marinos Mitralexis flew the PZL P.24, a Polish all-metal fighter aircraft. It was designed by Polish aeronautical engineer Zygmunt Pulawski and produced in the 1930s at the PZL factory in Warsaw.)
1942
General Montgomery broke through Rommel’s defensive line at El Alamein, Egypt, forcing the Nazis to retreat. It marked the beginning of the end of the Axis occupation of North Africa. The operation code-named Supercharge was launched with a seven-hour aerial bombardment directed on Tel el Aqqaqir and Sidi Abd el Rahman, followed by a four and a half hour barrage of 360 guns firing about 15,000 shells. The two assault brigades started their attack at 01:05 on November 2, 1942 and achieved their objectives on schedule, with moderate losses. On the right of the main attack 28th (Maori) battalion captured positions to protect the right flank of the newly formed salient and 133rd Lorried Infantry did the same on the left. New Zealand engineers cleared five lines through the mines allowing the Royal Dragoons armoured car regiment to slip out into the open and spend the day raiding the Axis communications. Rommel reported to Hitler that: "........the army's strength was so exhausted after its ten days of battle that it was not now capable of offering any effective opposition to the enemy's next break-through attempt ... With our great shortage of vehicles an orderly withdrawal of the non-motorised forces appeared impossible ... In these circumstances we had to reckon, at the least, with the gradual destruction of the army....." Hitler replied - ordering Rommel to stand ground and not surrender, and told him that "....you can show them no other road than that to victory or death....."
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