This Week in WWII by Tom "Crash" Davis

September 14, 1943: 

• German troops in Crete undertake the Holocaust Viannos in which over 500 Cretans were killed and over 29 villages destroyed in a three day period.  The action was in response to the support of the villages for the Cretan resistance.  It was the largest massacre of civilians in Greece during World War Two.  The German commanding General, Generalleutant Freidrich-Wilhelm Muller, was executed for the crimes after the war.
• British troops capture the port of Bari in southeastern Italy.
• American troops land on the island of Sardinia and in the absence of any German resistance, take the island.

September 14, 1944: 

• Soviet forces begin their Baltic Offensive.  This would result in the encirclement and isolation of the German Army Group North, its eventual surrender and the beginning of nearly 50 years of Soviet domination of the Baltic States, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

September 15, 1943: 

• Newly "elected" Chinese "President" Chiang Kai-shek asks the his American adviser, "Vinegar" Joe Stillwell be recalled for having dared to suggest an alliance with the Communist Chinese forces led by Mao Se-Dung

September 15, 1944: 

• The Marines land on Peleliu, beginning a campaign of attrition that would last two and a half months.

September 16, 1943: 

• British forces begin the Dodecanese campaign, seizing islands in the Aegean Sea
• British troops from Naples link up with the American bridgehead at Salerno.

September 16, 1944: 

• Soviet troops enter Sofia, Bulgaria.

September 16, 1945: 

• The Japanese Garrison in Hong Kong signs the Articles of Surrender.

September 17, 1944: 

• Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery's poorly conceived and badly executed (by the British XXX Corps) Operation Market-Garden begins.  While the movie "A Bridge To Far" was good, if you want to learn of the campaign read the outstanding book by Cornelius Ryan with the same name.  One of the best historical books ever written, easily the equal of Stephen Ambrose's "A Band of Brothers."
• British and Commonwealth troops engage German forces in the tiny, neutral country of The Most Serene Republic of San Marino.  San Marino is a small country totally surrounded by Italy in the northeastern Italian Alps. 

September 18, 1944:

• The Allies liberate the French port of Brest.
• Jun Uluots proclaims the government of Estonia, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Otto Tief.