This Day in WWII 9 April 1940 - 1945

[Donster]

Buick Ad - April 1944

1940: German troops invade Denmark and Norway simultaneously. There is very little opposition by the surprised Danes, with Copenhagen being captured within 12 hours. The Germans make sea-borne landings in Norway at Oslo, Kristiansand, Bergen, Trondheim and Narvik. An airborne landing is also made against the airfield at Stavanger. Norwegian defenders move inland. Major Quisling sets up ‘National Government’ in Oslo.

1940: The Kriegsmarine loses the cruisers Blücher, which is sunk by Norwegian coastal batteries, plus Königsberg and Karlsruhe to British naval and air attack.

*Delores Moran

1941: The RAF attack Kiel in an attempt to knock out the port facilities.

1941: German forces capture Nis and Monastir in Yugoslavia. German tanks enter Thessalonika, trapping the Greek 2nd Army in the Metaxas line, forcing them to surrender.

Delores Moran

1941: Rommel's forces take Bardia.

1942: The Germans make some limited advances towards their surrounded units at Kholm-Staraya Russa. Russian troops attack furiously at Kerch in the Crimea, but there have no success because of the stubborn German defense.

Delores Moran

1942: Mahatma Gandhi arrested in India.

1942: Japanese aircraft sink the British carrier Hermes, the destroyer Vampire and three other warships in Indian Ocean.

Delores Moran

1942: US-Filipino forces surrender on Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. 78,000 troops are captured, including 12,000 Americans, but 2,000 escape to Corregidor. This is the largest capitulation in US History.

1943: Exterminations at Chelmno cease. The camp will be reactivated in the spring of 1944 to liquidate ghettos. In all, Chelmno will total 300,000 deaths.

Delores Moran

1944: The remains of the 1st Panzer Army regain the German lines after a 150-mile forced march. The Red Army breaks through the German lines at Kerch in the eastern Crimea.

1944: Fierce fighting across the District Commissioner’s tennis court at Kohima. The Japanese renew their struggle with the 17th Indian Division, South West of Imphal.

Delores Moran

1945: The British Eighth Army launches its final offensive in Italy with a 1,800-plane and 1,500-gun bombardment of the German positions East of Bologna. The U.S. Fifth Army begins its offensive toward Bologna and the Po river valley.

1945: Army Group E is now completely isolated from the main German forces, but continues its struggle against Titos partisan forces in Yugoslavia.

Delores Moran

1945: Russians secure Königsberg, after the commander of "fortress Königsberg" General Lasch surrenders (and for this condemned to death in Germany).

1945: The Red Army is repulsed at the Seelow Heights on the outskirts of Berlin.

Delores Moran

*Delores Moran was born on January 27, 1924 in Stockton, California, the daughter of James G. "Jim" Moran and his wife, Mary Esther Moran. In May 1941 she is crowned "Queen of the Butte County Fair" by California governor Culbert L. Olson. Her prize is an expense-paid trip via Greyhound bus to Yosemite National Park. On that trip in July 1941 to Yosemite, she is photographed by photographers from National Geographic magazine. She is a guest on Commander Scott's "Romance of the Highway," a Greyhound radio broadcast in San Francisco. On August 31st, 1941 Delores is awarded third place out of a field of 50 in a competition for the "Girl of the Golden West" title at the California State Fair, in Sacramento. Shortly afterward, the story goes that the blonde, extremely well-endowed looker Dolores Moran was checked out at an annual Elks Lodge picnic by a Warner Brothers talent scout and a starlet was born. Dolores was a popular pin-up item with soldiers after appearing on magazine covers. Typically utilized in small, busty film parts from 1942 on, she achieved a bit of distinction, or perhaps distraction, in Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins' tearjerker "Old Acquaintance" (1943), Bogie and Bacall's "To Have and Have Not" (1944), and Jack Benny's "The Horn Blows at Midnight" (1945). In 1947 she first worked with producer Benedict Bogeaus in the film "Christmas Eve" (1947). They eventually married in 1952, but not without scandal (he being 20 years older). They had one son. Her film career sagged after that, appearing strictly in her husband's pictures, her last being "Silver Lode" (1954). They divorced in 1962 and not much was heard from Dolores until newspapers reported her death from a heart attack at age 58 on February 5, 1982 in Woodland Hills, California.