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N0KFQ > TODAY 16.05.11 19:40l 47 Lines 2034 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - May 16
Path: IZ3LSV<IK2XDE<DB0RES<DK0WUE<7M3TJZ<JE7YGF<F6CDD<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 110516/1804Z 7849@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.0.4
May 16, 1943:
As Brits launch Operation Chastise, Germans launch Operation
Gypsy Baron
On this day in 1943, the British Royal Air Force sets into motion
a plan to bomb key dams in order to flood the Ruhr region of
Germany, while the German army pursues an anti-partisan sweep in
Russia.
Operation Chastise, part of a larger strategy of "area bombing"
begun a year earlier was led by Guy Gibson, one of the RAF's best
bomber pilots. Leading 18 bombers at low altitude across the
North Sea and Holland, Gibson lost six bombers and 56 of his crew
(out of 133) who were shot down before reaching their
destinations, the Mohne, Eder, and Sorpe dams. The surviving
aircraft succeeded in destroying two of their three targets,
causing the Ruhr river, a tributary of the Rhine, to flood the
surrounding area, killing 1,268 people, including, unfortunately,
700 Russian slave laborers. Gibson would be awarded the Victoria
Cross for his successful, though costly, raid.
Meanwhile, the German army went on the offensive against partisan
resistance fighters who controlled large tracts of swampland,
forest, and mountain ranges and were still battling the German
invaders on the eastern front in Russia. Out of 6,000 partisans
in the region, German bombing killed 1,584 and another 1,568 were
taken prisoner. Bombs were not the only things that fell from the
sky; the Germans dropped 840,000 leaflets calling for the
surrender of the partisans.
On the evening of that same day, the Warsaw ghetto revolt was
finally put down with the destruction of the Warsaw synagogue.
The revolt began on April 18 when Jews, walled into a stifling
area after the massive German assault on the city, began a heroic
armed revolt against their German persecutors. After all was said
and done, 14,000 Jews were killed in the revolt or sent to the
death camp at Treblinka and another 42,000 were sent to labor
camps in Lublin.
73, K.O. n0kfq
Another old retired guy
N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: n0kfq@centurytel.net
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