Air Operations, Europe
The RAF make a heavy night attack on Hamburg.
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]Eastern Front
Russia confirms the evacuation of Stalino in the Donetz basin. The Germans break through the Perekop Isthmus into the Crimea.
Partisan Paraded through the Streets |
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| Maria "Masha" Bruskina was a 17-year-old Jewish member of the Minsk Resistance during World War II. She volunteered as a nurse at the hospital in the Polytechnic Institute, which had been set up to care for wounded members of the Red Army. In addition to caring for the soldiers, she helped them escape by smuggling civilian clothing and false identity papers into the hospital. A patient told the Germans what Bruskina was doing, and she was arrested on October 14, 1941. Local German authorities decided on a public hanging to make an example of Bruskina, along with two other members of the resistance, 16-year-old Volodia Shcherbatsevich and World War I veteran Kiril Trus. Before being hanged, she was paraded through the streets with a plaque around her neck which read, in both German and Russian: "We are partisans and have shot at German troops". Members of the resistance were made to wear similar signs whether or not they had actually shot at German troops. She and her two comrades were hanged in public on Sunday, October 26, 1941, in front of "Minsk Kristall" a yeast brewery and distillery plant. The Germans let the bodies hang for three full days before allowing them to be cut down and buried. |
The German 4th Army is under fierce Soviet attack and is forces onto the defensive, while the LIII Corps reaches the Oka River and the XLIII Corps moves up to Belev.
SOUTHERN SECTORNear Stalino, the Soviets are falling back, abandoning the Donbas to the Germans. Fierce fighting continues at Ishun as the 11th Army begins to force open the Soviet defenses.
[ | ]North Africa
The Australians are relieved at Tobruk by the British 70th Div, the Polish Carpathian Bde and British tank elements.
Arrival of the Polish Forces in North Africa |
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