On This Day ... in 1917 & Others
The Second Battle of Passchendaele began. The ANZAC troops, who had suffered heavily in the previous phases of the Third Ypres offensive, had been relieved by the Canadian Corps. Although the combination of artillery fire and heavy rain had reduced the terrain to a quagmire in many places, the assault was renewed. The Germans resorted to the use of increasing quantities of mustard gas to stave off the attacks.
Progress was slow, and casualties extremely heavy. Passendale was finally captured in early November , but at a massive cost of 270,000 casualties.
1918: Allenby's brilliant campaign in the Near East came to an effective close with the capture of Aleppo in Syria, only six weeks after the offensive was launched at the Battle of Megiddo.
1940: Birmingham was attacked for the third night in succession as was London
Situated in the Midlands, Birmingham is an important industrial and manufacturing location and is also heavily populated, being the UK's second largest city. 2,241 people were killed, and 3,010 seriously injured. A further 3,682 sustained lesser injuries. 12,391 houses, 302 factories and 239 other buildings were destroyed, with many more damaged. Overall, around 2,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Birmingham making it the third most heavily bombed city in the United Kingdom in World War II, only behind London and Liverpool. Official figures state that 5,129 high explosive bombs and 48 parachute mines landed on the city, although there are no figures for the number of incendiary bombs that were dropped. Of the high explosive bombs, around one fifth failed to detonate and one third of the parachute mines were left suspended after the parachute cords became caught in various obstacles such as trees
Comments
... and the battle of Chateauguay, in 1813.
Cheers
Posted by: J.M. Heinrichs | October 26, 2009 4:55 AM