A day marked by sinking ships, political maneuvering, desperate fighting, and the final destruction of the machinery of genocide.
1939 – Conflicting Reports at Sea
Germany claimed that four British ships had been sunk in the North Sea. London immediately denied the report,
another reminder of how the war at sea became a battlefield of both torpedoes and propaganda.
The truth, as so often during these early months, was difficult to confirm amid confusion, secrecy, and misinformation.
1940 – Sabotage in Haifa and New Wings in the Air
In Haifa, tragedy unfolded in the harbor. Members of the Zionist group Irgun detonated explosives aboard the British liner
Patria to prevent the deportation of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe. The explosion sank the ship, killing 213 of the
1,771 refugees and 50 members of the crew. The act, intended as a rescue, instead became a devastating loss of life in a city already
strained by the turmoil of the war.
Elsewhere in Britain, new aircraft took to the skies for the first time. The De Havilland Mosquito made its maiden flight—an aircraft
that would become one of the most versatile and successful Allied bombers of the war. Across the Atlantic, the U.S. Martin B-26
Marauder also flew for the first time, adding another potent medium bomber to the growing American arsenal.
1941 – Ideology, Offensives, and a Battleship Lost
In Berlin, Adolf Hitler stepped away from directing the assault on Moscow to meet Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
While Hitler stopped short of openly endorsing Arab nationalist ambitions—mindful of Vichy France—the two men agreed on what they described
as the “destruction” of the “Jewish element,” revealing the shared antisemitic ideology that would fuel further horrors.
On the Eastern Front, the Germans pressed forward toward Moscow, throwing in every available unit for a final attempt to seize the Soviet capital
before winter fully closed in. The fighting grew more desperate as temperatures dropped and Soviet resistance stiffened.
In North Africa, Rommel continued his strikes against the rear of the British Eighth Army, exploiting every weakness in supply and communication.
At sea, the Mediterranean delivered another shock: U-331, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Hans-Dietrich Tiesenhausen, torpedoed and sank the British
battleship HMS Barham. The loss of the ship and more than 800 crew members stunned the Royal Navy and dealt another blow to Allied naval power in the region.
1943 – Tarawa, New Guinea, and Victory at Sea
The U.S. Navy reported that Japanese forces in the Gilbert Islands were nearly annihilated. At Tarawa, American Marines faced ferocious resistance:
1,090 were killed and 2,193 wounded. Out of a Japanese garrison of 4,836, only 100 were taken prisoner—and just 17 of them were soldiers.
It was one of the bloodiest island assaults of the Pacific war.
In New Guinea, Sattelberg fell to the 9th Australian Division, marking another step in the Allied advance northward.
Off Cape St. George, one of the most decisive destroyer actions of the war unfolded. U.S. destroyers intercepted a Japanese force evacuating
troops from Buka. In a swift, skillful engagement, the Americans sank three of the five Japanese destroyers without suffering a single casualty—
a near-perfect victory.
1944 – Liberation, Destruction, and the V-2 Strikes Continue
In France, the First French Army captured Belfort, continuing their push through eastern France. Meanwhile, Heinrich Himmler ordered the
destruction of the crematories at Auschwitz, an attempt to conceal evidence as the Red Army approached.
On Peleliu, the last pockets of Japanese resistance were finally crushed. Nearly 14,000 Japanese soldiers were killed or captured, at the cost
of 9,300 American casualties in one of the most grueling battles of the Pacific.
In London, a German V-2 rocket slammed into a Woolworth department store, killing 168 people. These rockets arrived without warning—silent,
supersonic, and devastating.
At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis demolished the crematoria and gas chambers, destroying the machinery of mass murder even as tens of thousands
remained imprisoned.
In Italy, the Allied command structure shifted as General Mark Clark assumed leadership of the 15th Army Group, while General Lucian Truscott
took command of the U.S. Fifth Army.
1945 – Sinking the U-Boats
After the German surrender, Britain began Operation Deadlight—the systematic sinking of captured German U-boats off the Hebrides.
These submarines, once the terror of the Atlantic, were now scuttled one by one, symbols of a defeated regime and a war finally coming to its end.
Remembering November 25
From sabotage in Haifa to the first flights of iconic bombers, from the sinking of HMS Barham to the bloodshed of Tarawa and Peleliu,
November 25 reflects the brutality, desperation, and vast scale of a world at war. The destruction of Auschwitz’s crematoria and the scuttling
of the U-boat fleet remind us how the machinery of oppression and conflict was dismantled piece by piece as the war drew to a close.
Lest we forget.