JULY 3 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

JULY 3

1935

MS Batory was a Polish luxury passenger ship, launched on July 3, 1935 in the port of Gdynia. The vessel was named after Stefan Batory, the famous sixteenth-century king of Poland.  The MS Batory was mobilized at the outbreak of World War II, surviving countless dangers, through waters where German U-boats stalked allied vessels, and she had an active role in many military missions  including the evacuation of the French-Polish-British corps from Narvik (1940), evacuation of allied troops from St. Nazaire and St. Jean de Luz (1940), invasion of Algier and Sicily (1942), military voyages to India (1943), served for  six months services as a troop carrier from Egypt to Italy (1943), and the invasion of southern France. She earned the nickname, "Lucky Ship". She sailed for 36 years, the longest service of any vessel.  After the war, transported asylum seekers to the free world. The Batory was later turned into a hotel and restaurant. Then by the orders of the communist regime in Poland, she was sent to Hong Kong on March 30, 1971 to be scrapped.

1940

British Royal Navy Bombed French destroyers:   On July 3, 1940 the British battlecruiser HMS Hood, battleships HMS Valiant and Resolution, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and an escort of cruisers and destroyers converged on a planned attack against the French fleet anchored in the harbor at Mers El Kébir on the coast of French Algeria.  British Fairey Swordfish planes escorted by Blackburn Skuas from Ark Royal dropped magnetic mines in the harbour exit. French Curtiss H-75 fighters intercepted and shot down a Skua, resulting in the loss of two crew members, the only British casualties in the action. Shortly thereafter, Churchill gave the order and British ships commenced  fire from 17,500 yd (9.9 mi; 16.0 km). The third salvo hit its target and resulted in a massive explosion aboard the Bretagne. It sank in minutes with 977 of her crew.  Provence, Dunkerque and the destroyer Mogador were damaged and run aground by their crews.  Strasbourg and four destroyers evaded the magnetic mines and escaped to the open sea pursed by a fleet of Swordfish from Ark Royal. The French ships responded with anti-aircraft fire and shot down two Swordfish. (The British crew were rescued by the destroyer HMS Wrestler.) The British War Cabinet feared the consequences had the French ships been confiscated by the Kriegsmarine (German Navy), thus giving the Germans a greater advantage in the Battle of the Atlantic. Churchill knew that the French fleet was powerful, and was second largest in Europe after that of the British Navy.

1944

Soviet Operation Bagration:   The Red Army broke through German defence lines and recaptured Minsk on July 3, 1944.  The Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army attacked from the north-east while the 2nd Guards Tank Corps advanced from the east, and the 65th Army advanced from the north, thus tightening an encirclement of the German Fourth Army.  In the meantime,  four German divisions of XXXIX Panzer Corps commenced a rapid retreat and headed for the crossings at Berezino, south of Borisov, in an effort to escape the trap. A column of German vehicles stretched back for many kilometres, under constant air attack, as the bridge was repeatedly damaged by bombing.  Lieutenant-General Otto Schünemann, replacement corps commander had been killed on June 29, after which the entire corp began to disintegrate. Over 100,000 German soldiers were trapped in a Soviet vice-grip. The Operation was a complete victory of the Red Army which liberated Minsk and destroyed much of the German Army Group Centre.  Germans casualties were 40,000 killed, and the rest captured.

JULY 2 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

JULY 2

1941

The Ponary Massacre was committed by German SD, SS, and Lithuanian Nazi collaborators, such as the Ypatingasis bury units. From July 1941 to August 1944 over 100,000 people were slaughtered near the railway station in Ponary (now Paneriai, Vilnius, Lithuania). Among the dead were 70,000 Jews, between 2,000 and 20,000 Poles, 8,000 Russian POWs, and many others from nearby Vilnius. Lithuania and the Baltic States became the first places outside occupied Poland where the Nazis mass murdered Jews as part of the Final Solution. Of a total of 70,000 Jewish inhabitants of Vilnius, only 7,000 (10%) survived the war.  On October 22, 2000  in Lithuania, several Polish organizations worked together to raise a monument to the fallen Polish citizens. An official memorial ceremony has held at which representatives from both Polish and Lithuanian governments, were present (Bronisław Komorowski, Polish Minister of Defence, and his Lithuanian counterpart).

1947

Soviet Minister Molotov Rejected the Marshall Plan:   When the Marshall Plan had been drafted on June 5, 1947 offering aid to the Soviet Union and its allies, the Russians flatly rejected it, as it appeared to them a Western incursion to take control of Soviet satellite states. Moreover, Stalin did not want to support any plan that would restore the economic health of Europe.  Molotov expressed worry that,  "... If American capital was given a free hand in the small states ruined and enfeebled by the war [it] would buy up the local industries, appropriate the more attractive Rumanian, Yugoslav […] enterprises and would become the master in these small states....".  On April 3, 1958, President Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan and granted $5 billion in financial aid to 16 European nations. In the ensuing four years, the US had donated a total of $ 17 billion in economic and technical assistance (in 2016 it would have been the equivalent of $ 189 billion) to assist European countries who joined the  Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OECD). The largest recipients of Marshall Plan was the UK (circa 26% of the total), France (18%) and West Germany (11%).  Funding was offered to Eastern bloc countries, but they refused, having been under pressure from Stalin.. A second, and larger meeting was convened in Paris on July 12, 1947, at which every European country (except Spain, and small states) were invited. The Soviet Union accepted the invitation, though they clarified that they might still refuse the Plan. Czechoslovakia and Poland agreed to attend as well.  However, the foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, Jan Masaryk, was summoned to Moscow and threatened by Stalin if he considered joining the Marshall Plan.  Conversely,  Józef Cyrankiewicz, the Prime Minister of Poland was rewarded by Stalin for having refused the Plan, and in return for his cooperation, the Soviet Union granted Poland a long-term credit and loan deal valued at $450 million, as well as 200,000 tonnes of grain, heavy and manufacturing machinery and factories and heavy industries.

JULY 1 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

JULY 1

1942

The Battle of El Alamein, part of the Western Desert Campaign, fought between Germany and Italy (Panzer Army Africa) and Allied Commonwealth forces of UK, British India, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand of the Eighth Army.  Axis positions near El Alamein were only 66 mi (106 km) from Alexandria and dangerously in close proximity to the ports and cities of Egypt, the base facilities of the Commonwealth forces and the Suez Canal.  At the same time Axis forces were too far from their base at Tripoli in Libya to remain at El Alamein indefinitely, which led both sides in the struggle to accumulate materiel supplies for more offensives, despite the limitations of time and distance.  On July 1, 1942, at 03:00 Rommel's 90th Light Infantry Division was advancing east but veered too far northward, and as a result found itself pinned down by the 1st South African Division's defences. The 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions of the Afrika Korps were delayed by a sandstorm and then a heavy air attack.  By the time they circled round the back of Deir el Abyad, they encountered the 18th Indian Infantry Brigade which had occupied the exposed region west of Ruweisat Ridge and east of Deir el Abyad.   At about 10:00 the German 21st Panzer Division attacked Deir el Shein. The 18th Indian Infantry Brigade,supported by 23 25-pounder gun-howitzers, 16 of the new 6-pounder anti-tank guns and nine Matilda tanks,launched a fierce defence. Though they managed to hold out for the entire day, by evening the Germans succeeded in over-running their position.

1991

Dissolution of Warsaw Pact:  The Warsaw Pact, formally called the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defence treaty signed in Warsaw by the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War.  Its principle objective was to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe.  Throughout the Cold War,  NATO and the Warsaw Pact never directly engaged in war against each other, however the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and their respective allies implemented strategic policies aimed at the containment of each other's spheres of influence in Europe, while at the same time trying to expand those spheres on an international scale. (the Korean War, Vietnam War, Bay of Pigs invasion, Dirty War, Cambodian–Vietnamese War and the others) From 1989 communist governments of many satellite states began to topple, in Albania, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. The Warsaw Pact was officially terminated on February 25, 1991 at a meeting of defence and foreign ministers from the six remaining member states in Hungary. The USSR was dissolved in December of the same year, though many of the former satellites joined the newly formed Collective Security Treaty Organization.  In the ensuing 20 years, seven former Warsaw Pact countries joined NATO.