October 1944

The following events occurred in October 1944:

October 1, 1944 (Sunday)

*The Battle of Tornio began between German and Finnish forces.
*Operation Undergo ended in Allied victory.
* Putten raid happened from October 1st to 2nd 660 men were taken away after a failed attack on a German official in November 1944
*After a four-day battle, the U.S. Fifth Army captured Monte Battaglia on the Gothic Line in Italy, helped by the Italian partisans. The II and the IV Corp of the Army launch an offensive towards Bologna, that will end in a month with heavy losses and a limited gain of ground.
* Richard McCreery replaced Oliver Leese as Commander-in-Chief of the Eighth Army.
*The St. Louis Browns won the American League pennant on the final day of the season by beating the New York Yankees 5-2. The Browns, who had never won a pennant in franchise history and would not win another as a St. Louis team, were helped immensely by the wartime roster depletion across baseball that happened to affect them less than the other ballclubs. The average major league team had ten 4-F players on its roster, but the Browns had eighteen.
*Died: Rudolf Schmundt, 48, German Army officer (died of wounds sustained in the 20 July bomb plot)

October 2, 1944 (Monday)

*The Warsaw Uprising was put down after two months by Nazi occupation forces.
*The Battle of Aachen began between American and German forces in and around Aachen, Germany.
*The Battle of the Scheldt began in northern Belgium and the southwestern Netherlands.
*Born: Vernor Vinge, computer scientist and author, in Waukesha, Wisconsin

October 3, 1944 (Tuesday)

*The Japanese submarine '' I-177'' was shelled and sunk in the Pacific Ocean by the destroyer escort '' Samuel S. Miles''.
*The American submarine USS ''Seawolf'' went missing, probably sunk in the Molucca Sea by the U.S. destroyer escort '' Richard M. Rowell'' in a friendly fire accident.
*Finnish forces captured Taivalkoski in northern Finland.
*In Lenno, on Lake Como, some partisans attempted to kidnap Guido Buffarini Guidi, the fascist Italian Social Republic's Minister of the Interior. The action ended tragically, with the deaths of five partisans.

October 4, 1944 (Wednesday)

*In Finnish Lapland the Germans moved from Operation Birke to Operation Nordlicht, an organized retreat using scorched earth tactics.
*The Battle of Morotai ended in Allied victory, although intermittent fighting continued there until the end of the war.
*Allied planes bombed Prague for the first time. Moscow requested permission for their troops to enter Bulgarian territory.
*German submarines '' U-92'', '' U-228'' and '' U-437'' were all rendered inoperable by an air raid on Bergen by RAF aircraft.
* Milan Nedić's collaborationist puppet government of the Axis powers, the Government of National Salvation in Nazi-occupied Serbia, was disbanded.
*Born:
**Danilo Abbruciati, nicknamed “the chameleon”, Italian gangster and hit man, member of the “ Banda della Magliana”, in Rome; d. 1982, killed by a security guard while he was carrying out an attack on Roberto Calvi’s behalf.
** Tony La Russa, baseball player and manager, in Tampa, Florida
** Ross Milne, Australian Olympic Alpine skier, in Myrtleford, Victoria, Australia (d. 1964, training crash at Winter Olympics)
*Died: Al Smith, 70, American statesman, Governor of New York and 1928 Democratic presidential candidate

October 5, 1944 (Thursday)

*Japanese forces captured Fuzhou, the last seaport under Chinese control.
*The Battle of Memel began on the Eastern Front.
*Joseph Goebbels announced a reduction in food rations.
*The incomplete Italian aircraft carrier '' Sparviero'' was scuttled at Genoa by Axis forces.
*In Italy, the IV Corp of the Fifth Army launched an attack towards La Spezia.
*End of the Marzabotto massacre, on the Apennines over Boronia, aimed to repress the support of the villagers to partisan brigade Red Star. In a week, the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS, headed by Walter Reder, had slaughtered 770 civilians (women and children included) in the territories of Marzabotto, Grizzana and Monzuno, with episodes of inenarrable sadism.
*Five pilots of No. 401 Squadron RCAF participated in the shooting down of a Messerschmitt Me 262 over the Netherlands, marking the first time that a jet fighter had been shot down by enemy fire.
*The stage musical ''Bloomer Girl'' with music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Yip Harburg and book by Sig Herzig and Fred Saidy premiered at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway.
*Born: Gianni Mazza, Italian conductor and composer of jazz and pop music, in Rome; Cesare Nosiglia, Archbishop of Turin (Genoa)

October 6, 1944 (Friday)

*The Dutch submarine '' Zwaardvisch'' torpedoed and sank German submarine '' U-168'' in the Java Sea.
* Milan Nedić, president of the Serbian collaborationist puppet state of the Axis powers, the Government of National Salvation, fled from Belgrade in Nazi-occupied Serbia by air together with other Serbian collaborators and German officials, via Hungary to Austria.
*The Battle of Debrecen began in Hungary.
*The Dumbarton Oaks Conference concluded.
*Born: Mylon LeFevre, singer, in Gulfport, Mississippi (d. 2023)

October 7, 1944 (Saturday)

*The Dumbarton Oaks Conference concluded.
*Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon signed the Alexandria Protocol, leading to the establishment of the Arab League on March 22, 1945.
*The Red Army began the Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive against Axis forces in Finland and Norway.
*On the Italian front, the V Corps of the British Eighth Army launched an offensive beyond the river Rubicon.
* Sonderkommando revolt: The ''Sonderkommando'' (Nazi death camp prisoners deployed to remove corpses from the gas chambers and burn them) at Auschwitz-Birkenau revolted with makeshift weapons. Three SS guards were killed, but more than 200 members of the ''Sonderkommando'' died in the fighting. Hundreds of prisoners escaped but were all soon captured and executed.
*"You Always Hurt the One You Love" by The Mills Brothers topped the ''Billboard'' singles charts.
*Dead: Arnaldo Faustin, 72, Italian polar geographer.

October 8, 1944 (Sunday)

*The Battle of Crucifix Hill was fought outside the German village of Haaren, resulting in American victory.
*The Battle of Tehumardi was fought at night on the Estonian island of Saaremaa between retreating German troops and a Soviet Estonian rifle division. Both sides fought blindly, firing into the darkness or feeling for the enemy by touch.
*The Battle of Tornio ended in German retreat.
*The Battle of Turda ended in Romanian-Soviet victory.
* Battle of the Nijmegen salient ended - the Germans were unable to recover lost ground taken by the Allies during Operation Market Garden.
*Sir William Jowitt was appointed Britain's first Minister of National Insurance.
*Died: Nicolò Cortese, 37, Italian priest, killed in Trieste by the Gestapo’s torturers for his help to Jews and partisans; called "the Italian Father Kolbe"; Wendell Willkie, 52, American lawyer, corporate executive and 1940 Republican presidential candidate (heart attack).

October 9, 1944 (Monday)

*The Fourth Moscow Conference began. Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and U.S. ambassador W. Averell Harriman met to discuss the future of Europe.
*Operation Loyton ended.
*During the Battle of the Scheldt, the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade made an amphibious landing on the south bank of the Western Scheldt.
*The St. Louis Cardinals defeated the St. Louis Browns 3-1 to win the 1944 World Series, four games to two.
*Born: John Entwistle, bass player for The Who, in Chiswick, London, England (d. 2002); Nona Hendryx, musician, in Trenton, New Jersey

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