Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, is touring the German-controlled USSR, viewing Nazi efforts to eliminate "subhumans". He's asked to see his first "shooting operation".
For Himmler's inspection, SS Einsatzgruppe B pick 100 Jews from Minsk to be shot. Among them, Himmler spots a young blond boy. Himmler: "Are you sure you're a Jew?" Boy: "Yes." "You have no Aryan ancestors?" "No." "Then I can't help- I did all I could." All shot.
Karl Wolff, Himmler's adjutant (right), accompanies SS chief to mass shooting: "He'd never seen dead people before. He stood at the edge of the open grave- & got brains splashed on his face & coat."
Himmler, pale & heaving, is shocked by brutality of mass killing. He orders research on more "humane" methods of execution, less traumatic to SS executioners. More: holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/himmle…
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German occupiers of Kiev have ordered all Jews to bring "papers, valuables & warm clothes" & march out of the city, towards a ravine named Babi Yar. 33771 people have obeyed, with resisters being publicly shot.
Entire Jewish population of Kiev are now assembled outside the city, at a ravine named Babi Yar. They've been ordered to strip naked by the Nazi SS:
Nazi SS & their Ukrainian collaborators are massacring the Jewish inhabitants of Kiev at Babi Yar. Each group of people is made to lie face-down on a layer of corpses, & shot in the back of the neck:
Allied troops have been surrounded by Germans at Kalamata, Greece. Their retreat cut off, they're ordered to surrender. New Zealand Sergeant Jack Hinton responds: "Fuck that, who'll come with me?"
Brigadier Leonard Parrington threatens Hinton with court-martial for using offensive language to a superior officer. Hinton, in return, threatens to shoot the Brigadier for his "defeatist" order to surrender.
Leading a squad of 12 men, Jack Hinton charges a German artillery piece & wipes out crew with grenades, before going on to storm two machine-gun nests with his bayonet. Hinton says: `"I didn't like the way things were going."
For the last day, the Japanese cabinet have been locked in fraught debate, interrupted by news of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria & of a second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Senior ministers are split on whether to surrender.
War Minister Korechika Anami tells cabinet that a captured US pilot has "admitted", under torture, that USA has 100 atom bombs ready to hit Japan. However, he still opposes surrender: "Would it not be wondrous for this whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower?"
Deadlocked Japanese cabinet appeals to Emperor Hirohito in an Imperial Conference (Gozen Kaigi): to decide whether to offer unconditional surrender to Allies, or fight on to destruction.
US bomber plane Enola Gay has dropped "Little Boy", the American atomic bomb, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It explodes with force equal to 15 kilotons of TNT.
The atom bomb detonates 1968 feet above Hiroshima. In less than one second, a 900 foot wide fireball blasts the centre of the city, vaporising hundreds of people without trace, & killing thousands more in seconds.
Hiroshima bomb sends out a blast wave of light & heat that travels at 2 miles per second, evaporating human bodies. Some of the dead leave shadows burned into the ground, their surroundings bleached white by atomic fire.
Cruiser USS Indianapolis has been torpedoed & sunk by Japanese submarine near Guam. She was returning from a top-secret mission to deliver the "Little Boy" atomic bomb to a US Pacific airbase on Tinian Island, where it will be flown to its target: the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
Hull rent by two Japanese torpedoes, the top-heavy USS Indianapolis sinks in 12 minutes. ~300 crew go down with the ship, 890 are adrift, without US Navy's knowledge, with slim hope of rescue. It's the worst single disaster in the history of the US Navy.
USS Indianapolis's sinking has not been noticed by US Navy- who did not investigate when cruiser failed to arrive today at Leyte island. 3 radio stations ignored her final SOS call, leaving 900 survivors adrift at mercy of dehydration, sunstroke & shark attack.
US General Staff have approved plan for Operation Downfall: the invasion of Japan, beginning in November of this year. Over a million Allied casualties are expected.
Allied plan for the invasion of Japan begins with Operation Olympic, amphibious assault on the southern island of Kyūshū- with 14 Allied divisions, 42 aircraft carriers, & 400+ more warships. Kyūshū will act as staging post to invade rest of the Home Islands of Japan.
Based on the American experience during still-ongoing assault on Okinawa, US planners expect invasion of Kyūshū to face fanatical resistance: they predict ~267,000 US deaths, with over 10 million Japanese casualties.