The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The university has its roots in the mining industry, as do Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand in general. Founded in 1896 as the South African School of Mines in Kimberley, it is the third oldest South African university in continuous operation.

The university has an enrolment of 40,259 students as of 2018, of which approximately 20 percent live on campus in the university's 17 residences. 63 percent of the university's total enrolment is for undergraduate study, with 35 percent being postgraduate and the remaining 2 percent being Occasional Students.

History

Early years: 1896–1922
The university was founded in Kimberley in 1896 as the South African School of Mines. It is the third oldest South African university in continuous operation, after the University of Cape Town (founded in 1829), and Stellenbosch University (founded in 1866). Eight years later, in 1904, the school was moved to Johannesburg and renamed the Transvaal Technical Institute. The school's name changed yet again in 1906 to Transvaal University College. In 1908, a new campus of the Transvaal University College was established in Pretoria. The Johannesburg and Pretoria campuses separated on 17 May 1910, each becoming a separate institution. The Johannesburg campus was reincorporated as the South African School of Mines and Technology, while the Pretoria campus remained the Transvaal University College until 1930 when it became the University of Pretoria. In 1920, the school was renamed the University College, Johannesburg.

Open years: 1922–1959
Finally, on 1 March 1922, the University College, Johannesburg, was granted full university status after being incorporated as the University of the Witwatersrand. The Johannesburg municipality donated a site in Milner Park, north-west of Braamfontein, to the new institution as its campus and construction began the same year, on 4 October. The first Chancellor of the new university was Prince Arthur of Connaught and the first Principal (a position that would be merged with that of Vice-Chancellor in 1948) was Professor Jan Hofmeyr. Hofmeyr set the tone of the university's subsequent opposition to apartheid when, during his inaugural address as Principal he declared, while discussing the nature of a university and its desired function in a democracy, that universities "should know no distinctions of class, wealth, race or creed". True to Hofmeyr's words, from the outset Wits was an open university with a policy of non-discrimination on racial or any other grounds.

Initially, there were six faculties—Arts, Science, Medicine, Engineering, Law and Commerce—37 departments, 73 academic staff, and approximately 1,000 students. In 1923, the university began moving into the new campus, slowly vacating its former premises on Ellof Street for the first completed building in Milner Park: the Botany and Zoology Block. In 1925, the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VIII) officially opened Central Block (which includes the Great Hall).

The university's first library, housed at the time in what was meant to be a temporary construction, was destroyed in a fire on Christmas Eve in 1931. Following this, an appeal was made to the public for £80,000 to pay for the construction of a new library, and the acquisition of books. This resulted in the fairly rapid construction of the William Cullen Library; opened in 1934. During this period, as the Great Depression hit South Africa, the university was faced with severe financial restrictions. Nonetheless, it continued to grow at an impressive rate. From a total enrolment of 2,544 students in 1939, the university grew to 3,100 in 1945. This growth led to accommodation problems, which were temporarily resolved by the construction of wood and galvanised-iron huts in the centre of the campus (which remained in use until 1972).

During World War II, Wits was involved in South Africa's war efforts. The Bernard Price Institute of Geophysical Research was placed under the Union of South Africa's defence ministry, and was involved in important research into the use of radar. Additionally, an elite force of female soldiers was trained on the university's campus.

In 1948 the National Party (NP) was voted into power by South Africa's white electorate, and apartheid (Afrikaans for "separateness") policies started to become law. The racist separation policies sparked a response, in 1957, by Wits, the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University and the University of Natal, who issued a joint statement entitled "The Open Universities in South Africa", committing themselves to the principles of university autonomy and academic freedom.

In 1959, the apartheid government's Extension of University Education Act forced restricted registrations of black students for most of the apartheid era; despite this, several notable black leaders graduated from the university. Wits protested strongly and continued to maintain a firm and consistent stand in opposition to apartheid. This marked the beginning of a period of conflict with the apartheid regime, which also coincided with a period of massive growth for the university. It was desegregated once again, prior to the abolition of apartheid, in 1990. Several of apartheid's most provocative critics, of either European or African descent, were one-time students and graduates of the university.

Growth and opposition to apartheid: 1959–1994

As the university continued to grow (from a mere 6,275 students in 1963, to 10,600 in 1975, to over 16,400 by 1985), the expansion of the university's campus became imperative. In 1964, the medical library and administrative offices of the Faculty of Medicine moved to Esselen Street, in the Hillbrow district of Johannesburg. In 1968, the Graduate School of Business was opened in Parktown. A year later, the Ernest Oppenheimer Hall of Residence and Savernake, the new residence of the Vice-Chancellor (replacing Hofmeyr House on the main campus) were both established, also in Parktown. That same year, the Medical School's new clinical departments were opened.

During the course of the 1960s, Wits acquired a limestone cave renowned for its archaeological material located at Sterkfontein. A farm next to Sterkfontein named Swartkrans rich in archaeological material was purchased in 1968, and excavation rights were obtained for archaeological and palaeontological purposes at Makapansgat, located in Limpopo Province.

The 1960s also witnessed widespread protest against apartheid policies. This resulted in numerous police invasions of campus to break up peaceful protests, as well as the banning, deportation and detention of many students and staff. Government funding for the university was cut, with funds originally meant for Wits often being channelled to the more conservative Afrikaans universities instead. Nonetheless, in the words of Clive Chipkin, the "university environment was filled with deep contradictions", and the university community was by no means wholly united in opposition to apartheid. This stemmed from the Wits Council being dominated by "highly conservative members representing mining and financial interests", and was compounded by the fact that the mining industry provided major financial support for the university. With a strongly entrenched "[c]olonial mentality" at Wits, along with "high capitalism, the new liberalism and communism of a South African kind, combined with entrenched white settler mores (particularly in the Engineering and Science faculties) ... the university ... was an arena of conflicting positions generally contained within polite academic conventions".

The 1970s saw the construction of Jubilee Hall and the Wartenweiler Library, as well as the opening of the Tandem Accelerator; the first, and to date only, nuclear facility at a South African university. In 1976, Lawson's Corner in Braamfontein was acquired and renamed University Corner. Senate House, the university's main administrative building, was completed in 1977. The university underwent a significant expansion programme in the 1980s. The Medical School was moved to new premises on York Street in Parktown on 30 August 1982. Additionally, in 1984 the university acquired the Milner Park showgrounds from the Witwatersrand Agricultural Society. These became West Campus, with the original campus becoming East Campus. In 1984, the Chamber of Mines building opened. A large walkway named the Amic Deck was constructed across the De Villiers Graaff Motorway which bisects the campus, linking East Campus with West Campus.

The 1980s also witnessed a period of heightened opposition to apartheid, as the university struggled to maintain its autonomy in the face of attacks from the apartheid state. Wits looked anew to the "Open Universities" statement of 1957, to which the University of the Western Cape now also added its voice. As the apartheid government attempted, through the threat of financial sanctions, to bring Wits under firmer control, protest escalated culminating in the General Assembly of 28 October 1987, at which the university reiterated its commitment to the values underlying the "Open Universities" statement.

University management itself came under increasing grassroots pressure to implement change within the university. A Wits-initiated research project, Perspectives of Wits (POW), published in 1986, revealed a surprising disconnect between the perceptions disadvantaged communities had of Wits and the image Wits had been attempting to convey of itself as a progressive opponent of apartheid. POW, which had involved interviews with members of organisations among disadvantaged communities in the PWV area, international academics, students and staff at Wits, and even a meeting with the then-banned ANC in Lusaka, revealed that to many in the surrounding disadvantaged communities, there was a perception of Wits as an elitist institution dominated by white interests. A need was identified for further transformation of the university.

However, instead of translating POW's proposals into institutional plans for transformation, Wits reacted in a defensive manner and refused to even acknowledge many of the criticisms that had been raised. Within the university community the perception was different—it was felt that Wits was on the right track. The contradiction between internal and external perceptions would increasingly undermine the unity of the university community, as progressive elements on campus began to take more radical positions in opposition to apartheid. Internal debates about, among other things, the international academic boycott of South Africa and the role of academics in the anti-apartheid struggle led to increasing division within the university. University management was increasingly seen as isolated and out of touch, and began to be referred to by the metonym "the eleventh floor", referring to the eleventh floor of Senate House where top management at Wits is located.

Nonetheless, the university community in general continued to uphold its opposition to apartheid and its commitment to university autonomy and academic freedom. The remainder of the 1980s saw numerous protests on campus, which often ended with police invasions of the university. In 1990, when Nelson Mandela was released, the students of Men's Res, on East Campus, unofficially renamed the lawn outside their residence "Mandela Square".

Post-apartheid: 1994–present
On 25 February 2000, university management began implementing a policy called "Wits 2001" under which work deemed 'non-core' to the functioning of the university (such as cleaning and landscaping) was outsourced to external contractors; the university's academic departments were also restructured: the university's nine faculties were reduced to five, the university's 99 departments were merged into 40 schools, and courses that were deemed redundant following a mass review were cancelled. Wits management did, however, initiate programmes to ameliorate some of the negative effects of Wits 2001. These included the implementation of early retirement and voluntary severance packages to minimise retrenchments. Additionally, many of the affected employees' children were studying at Wits at the time, and received bursaries as part of their parents' employment contracts with Wits. The university therefore continued to offer bursaries to them until the completion of the degrees for which they were then enrolled, as well as offering bursaries to the children of affected employees who matriculated in 2000.

Wits 2001 attracted widespread criticism from the workers and staff affected, as well as from students and other staff. The arguments behind the restructuring were criticised as badly reasoned, and the policy itself was criticised as being regressive and neoliberal. The then-vice-chancellor, Professor Colin Bundy, said in defence of Wits 2001 that "[t]his fundamental reorganisation of both academic activities and support services will equip the university for the challenges of higher education in the 21st Century". Management issued a statement on 30 May 2000 responding to criticism of Wits 2001 from the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (NEHAWU), the largest trade union among Wits employees, in which it defended Wits 2001 as constituting the "outsourcing [of] contracts for certain non-core functions, rather than any shift in ownership relations or governance" contra NEHAWU's claims that it constituted privatisation. Management further defended the changes as "improving the financial sustainability of Wits, taking pressure off management and students, and allowing for better academic and support facilities and services". Along with "Igoli 2002" in Johannesburg, Wits 2001 was one of the policies implemented in the early 2000s which resulted in the formation of the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF).

In 2001, the Johannesburg College of Education was incorporated into the university as Wits Education Campus under the national Department of Education's plan to reform tertiary education in South Africa. In 2003, a student mall, called the Matrix, was opened in the Student Union Building on East Campus.

In 2015 to 2016, the FeesMustFall movement and protests resulted in shut downs at Wits and other leading South African universities. In March 2021, one person was killed at the Braamfontein campus after police fired rubber bullets at students protesting the university's decision to bar students owing more than 150,000 rand from registering for the new academic year. According to the university, it is owed over a billion rand from students over the last seven years and was at risk of financial unsustainability.

Coat of arms
The current coat of arms of the university was designed by Professor G. E. Pearse, and edited by Professor W. D. Howie to correct heraldic inaccuracies, before being accepted by the State Herald of South Africa in 1972. The design of the coat of arms incorporates a gold background in the upper section of the shield to represent the Witwatersrand gold fields – on which the mining industry that gave rise to the university is based – along with an open book superimposed upon a cogwheel, representing knowledge and industry. The silver wavy bars on the lower section of the shield represent the Vaal and Limpopo rivers which form the northern and southern borders of the Witwatersrand gold fields. Above the shield is the head of a Kudu, an antelope typical of the Witwatersrand and the university's mascot. The university's motto, "Scientia et Labore", meaning "Through Knowledge and Work" in Latin, appears just below the shield.

The university's coat of arms evolved from the badge of the South African School of Mines. This badge consisted of a diamond with a shield superimposed upon it. A prospector's pick and a sledge hammer overlaid with broken ore and a mill appeared on the shield. The South African School of Mine's motto was the same as the university's current one, and surrounded the shield.

Governance and administration

As set out in the Higher Education Act (Act No. 101 of 1997) and in the Statute of the University of the Witwatersrand, the university is governed by Council. The Chancellor of the university is the ceremonial head of the university who, in the name of the university, confers all degrees. The positions of Principal and Vice-Chancellor are merged, with the Vice-Chancellor responsible for the day-to-day running of the university and accountable to Council. Council is responsible for the selection of all Vice-Chancellors, Deputy Vice-Chancellors and Deans of Faculty.

The responsibility for regulating all teaching, research and academic functions of the university falls on Senate. Additionally, the interests of the university's students are represented by the Students' Representative Council (SRC), which also selects representatives to Senate and Council.

Campuses

The university is divided into five academic campuses, the main administrative campus is East Campus. Across the De Villiers Graaff Motorway lies West Campus. The two are joined by a brick-paved walkway across the highway called the Amic Deck. East and West Campus effectively form a single campus, bordered by Empire Road to the north, Jan Smuts Avenue to the east, Jorrissen Street and Enoch Sontonga Road to the south and Annet Road to the west. The historic East Campus is primarily the home of the faculties of Science and Humanities, as well as the University Council, Senate and management. West Campus houses the faculties of Engineering and the Built Environment, and Commerce, Law and Management. East Campus is home to four residences, namely Men's Res (male), Sunnyside (female), International House (mixed) and Jubilee Hall (female). West Campus is home to David Webster Hall (female), Barnato Hall and West Campus Village (both mixed).

Wits has three more academic campuses, all located in Parktown. Wits Education Campus (WEC) houses the school of education, within the Faculty of Humanities. WEC boasts three female residences, forming the Highfield cluster, namely Girton, Medhurst and Reith Hall. East of WEC (across York Road), lies Wits Medical Campus which is the administration and academic centre of the Faculty of Health Sciences. West of WEC (across Victoria Avenue) lies the Wits Management Campus, with the Wits Business School. Within the Wits Management Campus are the Ernest Oppenheimer Hall (male residence) and the mixed Parktown Village.

There are centres that are not academic although referred to by the university as campuses. These are Graduate Lodge, Campus Lodge, South Court and Braamfontein Centre; all in the city district of Braamfontein and all mixed gender. Furthermore, there is the Wits Junction (mixed) and the Knockando Halls of Residence (a male residence located on the grounds of a Parktown mansion called Northwards) in Parktown, and the mixed Esselen Street Residence in Hillbrow.

Sites

Provincial heritage sites and heritage objects
The University of the Witwatersrand houses two provincial heritage sites and two heritage objects. The Great Hall (technically the façade of the Robert Sobukwe Building, formerly known as Central Block, in which the Great Hall is located), and the Dias Cross housed in the William Cullen Library are both provincial heritage sites. They were formerly national monuments, until 1 April 2000 when the National Monuments Council was replaced by a new system which made former national monuments the responsibility of provincial governments following the passage of the National Heritage Resources Act. The heritage objects are Jan Smuts' study, housed in Jan Smuts House, and the Paul Loewenstein Collection of rock art. All of the university's national heritage sites and objects are located on East Campus.

Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research (WiSER)

The University of the Witwatersrand is home to the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research (WiSER), founded in 2001 by Deborah Posel.

Cradle of Humankind

Wits acquired the Sterkfontein and Swartkrans sites in the 1960s, both of which were rich in fossil remains of early hominids. In 1999, the area was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO as the Cradle of Humankind. As a World Heritage Site, responsibility for the site shifted from the university to the government of Gauteng Province, with the provincial government becoming the designated management authority responsible for developing and protecting the site. It is aided by the South African Heritage Resources Agency, which has also declared the area a national heritage site. The university's archaeology and palaeontology departments, within the School of Geosciences of the Faculty of Science, continue to play a leading part in excavations of the site; and Wits retains ownership of Sterkfontein's intellectual rights. Professor Lee Berger discovered Australopithecus sediba (2010) and Homo naledi (2015) at the site.

Museums

The university hosts at least fourteen museums. These include the Adler Museum of Medicine, the Palaeontology Museum and the only Geology Museum in Gauteng Province. The displays include a vast spectra not limited to the Taung skull, various dinosaur fossils and butterflies.

Rock art
The Roberts-Pager Collection of Khoisan rock art copies is located in the Van Riet Lowe building on East Campus.

Johannesburg Planetarium

The Johannesburg Planetarium was the first full-sized planetarium in Africa and the second in the Southern Hemisphere. It was originally bought by the Johannesburg municipality to be set up as part of the celebration of the city's seventieth anniversary. After acquiring an old projector from the Hamburg Planetarium, which was modernised before being shipped to South Africa, the municipality sold the projector to the university for use as both an academic facility for the instruction of students, and as a public amenity. Plans for a new building to house the projector were first drawn up in 1958, and construction began in 1959. The planetarium finally opened on 12 October 1960. The Johannesburg Planetarium is often consulted by the media, and the public, in order to explain unusual occurrences in the skies over South Africa. In 2010, the Johannesburg Planetarium celebrated its golden jubilee.

Wits Art Museum
The museum's collection started in the 1950s and has since grown substantially. In 1972 the Gertrude Posel Gallery was established on the ground floor of Senate House on East Campus. It was joined in 1992 by the Studio Gallery which formed the "lower gallery" reserved for the display of African art. The galleries' collections grew steadily, with the Studio Gallery becoming renowned for having one of the best collections of African beadwork in the world, and by 2002 it was decided that more space was needed. Thus, the Gertrude Posel Gallery and the Studio Gallery were closed. The ground floor of University Corner was selected as the site for the new Wits Art Museum, which now houses the collections after it was completed and launched in 2012.

Wits Theatre

The Wits Theatre is a performing arts complex within the university, although it also caters for professional companies, dance studios and schools. It is run by the university's Performing Arts Administration (PAA). Prior to the opening of the Wits Theatre, the Wits Schools of Dramatic Art and Music had been staging productions in a building on campus called the Nunnery, a former convent. The Nunnery has been retained as a teaching venue.

Wits Centre for Diversity Studies (WiCDS)

The Wits Centre for Diversity Studies (WiCDS) was established in 2014 at the University of Witwatersrand. It is based in the Faculty of Humanities and aims to build capacity to meet the challenges of diverse societies, especially in post-apartheid South Africa through interdisciplinary postgraduate education and research.

Academics

Research
Wits University is the home to 28 South African Research Initiative (SARChI) Chairs and six DST-NRF Centres of Excellence. There are just more than 423 NRF rated researchers, of which 28 are 'international leading scholars' in their research fields, or so called A-rated researchers. The university also has a wide range of research entities including 10 national Centres of Excellence.

Faculties
The university consists of five faculties: Commerce, Law and Management; Engineering and the Built Environment; Health Sciences; Humanities; and Science.

Commerce, Law, and Management
This Faculty currently offers various undergraduate and postgraduate degrees  in accountancy, economics, management, and law. The faculty participates in the WitsPlus programme, a part-time programme for students, and is based in the Commerce, Law and Management Building on West Campus.

Engineering and the Built Environment

This Faculty is made up of 7 schools being: Architecture & Planning, Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Construction Economics & Management, Electrical & Information Engineering, Mechanical, Industrial & Aeronautical Engineering and Mining Engineering. The faculty is based in the Chamber of Mines Building on West Campus, which houses the faculty office and the Engineering Library. The School of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering are located in the Hillman and Richard Ward Buildings on the East Campus respectively.

Health Sciences
This Faculty is based on the Wits Health Sciences Campus in Parktown, and consists of the School of Anatomical Sciences; Clinical Medicine; Oral Health Sciences; Pathology; Public Health; Physiology; and Therapeutic Sciences. This Faculty uses the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, the Helen Joseph Hospital, the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital and Klerksdorp/Tshepong Hospital Complex as its main teaching hospitals. It also utilizes facilities throughout Gauteng, North West Province, and Mpumalanga. The Faculty runs a graduate entry medical and physiotherapy programme, masters courses (science, medicine and dentistry) and a PhD programme.

Humanities

This Faculty is based in the South West Engineering Building on East Campus and consists of the schools of Social Sciences, Literature and Language Studies, Human and Community Development, Arts, and Education.

Science

The Faculty is based in the Mathematical Sciences Building within the Wits Science Stadium on Braamfontein Campus West and consists of the schools of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences; Chemistry; Physics; Molecular and Cell Biology; Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies; Geosciences; Mathematics; Statistics and Actuarial Science and School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics.

Libraries

The University of the Witwatersrand Library Service consists of two main libraries, the Warteinweiler and William Cullen libraries on East Campus and twelve branch libraries. The Wartenweiler Library primarily serves the Faculty of Humanities. It also contains the Library Administration, Library Computer Services and Technical Services departments as well as the Short Loan collection, the Reference collection, Inter-library Loans department, the Multimedia Library, and the Education and Training department as well as the Electronic Classroom. The William Cullen Library contains the Africana collection, specialising in social, political and economic history. It also contains the Early and Fine Printed Books collection, which includes the Incunabula (books printed before 1501). Finally, it also contains a collection of Government Publications and journals in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

The branch libraries are:
 The Martienssen Library for the Built Environment, which serves the schools of architecture and planning and construction management within the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment. It is located in the John Moffat Building (also known as the Architecture Building) on East Campus.
 The Biological & Physical Sciences Library which is situated in the Oppenheimer Life Sciences Building on East Campus and serves the Faculty of Science, together with the Geomaths Library.
 The Commerce Library which, along with the Wits Library of Management, serves the schools of commerce and management. It is located to the west of the Tower of Light on West Campus.
 The Education Library (also known as the Harold Holmes Library) which is located on Wits Education Campus in Parktown and serves the school of education within the Faculty of Humanities.
 The Engineering Library, which is located in the Chamber of Mines Building on West Campus and serves the schools of engineering within the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment.
 The GeoMaths Library, which is situated in the basement of Senate House on East Campus and serves a range of schools within the faculties of Science, Engineering and the Built Environment, and Humanities.
 The Witwatersrand Health Sciences Library (WHSL) which serves the Faculty of Health Sciences. It is divided into four branches, one of which (formerly at Helen Joseph Hospital) is now a "virtual library" available only online. Two of the other branches are at the Wits Medical Campus in Parktown, while the remaining branch is at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
 The Wits Library of Management, which, together with the Commerce Library, serves the schools of commerce and management. It is located in the Donald Gordon Building on the Management Campus in Parktown.
 The Law Library which serves the school of law within the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management. It is located in the Oliver Schreiner Law Building on West Campus. Unlike the university's other libraries, the Law Library is governed directly by the school of law, rather than by the University of the Witwatersrand Library.

Reputation and ranking

In 2019 Wits was ranked 201–300 globally and 2nd nationally in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), commonly known as Shanghai Ranking. In the 2019/2020 Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR) Wits is ranked 254 globally (top 1.3% in the world). In the 2019 US News Best global Universities Rankings, Wits was ranked 2nd in Africa and #197 globally with a Global score of 59.9. Wits ranked #194 globally in the 2020 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

The University of Witwatersrand Business School was ranked 6th best among all business schools in Africa and the Middle East in the 2010 according to the QS Global 200 Business Schools Report. Additionally, the Business School's MBA program has been ranked as the top MBA program in South Africa by the Financial Mail for the past 6 years.

Frankenwald controversy

In 1905 the mining magnate Alfred Beit donated a large piece of land, Frankenwald Estate, north of Johannesburg, to the Transvaal Colony to be used for 'educational purposes' – the land was transferred to Wits in 1922 by an Act of Parliament. According to the Mail & Guardian the university entered into an agreement in 2001 with a private developer, , to build a shopping centre, offices, light industry and medium and high-density housing on the property.

Student demographics
Like other South African universities, the University of Witwatersrand promotes diversity in order to address the widespread inequality and injustice caused by apartheid across South Africa. For this reason, the university's admission policies promote diversity and Black Economic Empowerment by admitting students from a wide range of backgrounds. These policies enable the university to assemble a diverse student body that reflects the demographic profile of South Africa's Gauteng region across a wide array of traits, including race, gender, socio-economic background, urban and rural geographic origin, culture, ethnicity, disability, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, and other traits.

Racial composition
The racial composition of the university's student population is as follows:

Gender composition
The gender composition of the university is shown below.

Wits Enterprise
Wits Enterprise is wholly owned by University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg to commercialise the intellectual property of the university.  They are also responsible for short courses, technology transfer and research support.

Notable alumni and academics

Motswedi Modiba, singer-songwriter.
John Burland, Professor of Soil Mechanics, Imperial College London. Well known for stabilizing The Leaning Tower of Pisa
Cheryl Cohen, alumna, professor and public health researcher
Jef Valkeniers, Doctor and Politician

Nobel Prize Laureates
Aaron Klug, 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Nadine Gordimer, 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature
Nelson Mandela, who attended but did not graduate from the university, 1993 Nobel Peace Prize

Sydney Brenner, 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

See also
 Dawn of Humanity (2015 PBS film)
 Widdringtonia whytei

References

Bibliography
  Online . Print .
 The Golden Jubilee of the University of the Witwatersrand 1972  (Jubilee Committee, University of the Witwatersrand Press)
 Wits: The Early Years : a History of the University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg and its Precursors 1896 – 1936 1982 Bruce Murray  (University of the Witwatersrand Press)
 Wits Sport: An Illustrated History of Sport at the University of the Witwatersrand 1989 Jonty Winch  (Windsor)
 Wits: A University in the Apartheid Era by Mervyn Shear (1996)  (University of the Witwatersrand Press)
 Wits: The "Open Years": A History of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1939–1959 1997 Bruce Murray  (University of the Witwatersrand Press)
 A Vice-Chancellor Remembers: the Memoirs of Professor G.R. Bozzoli 1995 Guerino Bozzoli  (Alphaprint)
 Wits Library: a Centenary History 1998 Reuben Musiker & Naomi Musiker  (Scarecrow Books)

External links

History of Transvaal University College
Rock art within Google Arts & Culture

Schools in Johannesburg
Business schools in South Africa
Public universities in South Africa
Universities in Gauteng
Educational institutions established in 1896
1896 establishments in the Cape Colony

University of the Witwatersrand


Eichardt's Private Hotel is located on the corner of Marine Parade and Ballarat Street, Queenstown, New Zealand, on the shores of Lake Wakatipu. Eichardt's is a significant local landmark, and is listed as a Category Two historic place by the Historic Places Trust.

History

William Gilbert Rees, one of the first Europeans to settle the Queenstown area, arrived at the shores of Lake Wakatipu in 1859, seeking pastoral land. Rees built a large hotel down on present day Frankton Road, a homestead on the lakefront and erected a woolshed on the site now occupied by Eichardt's Private Hotel.

When gold was discovered in the nearby Shotover River in 1862, Rees found his high country station at the centre of a gold rush - his homestead was declared an official goldfield and the main business area of Queenstown developed around his station. An entrepreneurial Rees quickly turned to the hotel keeping business, his woolshed was given a wooden facade and turned into a hotel named the Queen's Arms.

In early 1866, Rees entered into partnership with Albert Eichardt, who went on to become the sole proprietor of the hotel by 1869. Eichardt renamed the hotel Eichardt's Queen's Arms Hotel, it was renamed Eichardt's Hotel during his time.

The Eichardt's building was significantly affected by the Queenstown floods in November 1999. Following the floods, the owners undertook alterations and renovations to restore the building and reinvent Eichardt's as a luxury boutique hotel.

Eichardt's reopened as Eichardt's Private Hotel in December 2001. A member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, the property is owned by Andrew and Sarah Cox of Melbourne. The property is also a member of the exclusive Virtuoso network and has been recommended by Andrew Harper's Hideaway Report since 2002.

See also
Otago Gold Rush

References

Hotels in New Zealand
Buildings and structures in Queenstown, New Zealand
Heritage New Zealand Category 2 historic places in Otago
Otago Gold Rush

Eichardt's Hotel


The Battle of the Netherlands () was part of the German invasion of France and the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) during World War II. The battle lasted from 10 May 1940 until the main Dutch forces surrendered on the 14th. Dutch troops in the province of Zealand continued to fight the until 17 May, when Germany occupied the whole nation.

The Battle of the Netherlands was one of the first major uses of paratroopers to land near important targets before ground troops reached the area. The German Luftwaffe used paratroopers to capture several major airfields in the Netherlands.

The battle ended soon after the terrible bombing of Rotterdam by the German Luftwaffe. The Germans threatened to bomb other large Dutch cities if Dutch forces refused to surrender. The Dutch surrendered to prevent other cities from being destroyed. The Netherlands was occupied by Germany until 1945, when Dutch territory was freed.

Background
Britain and France declared war on Germany in 1939, after Germany invaded Poland. No major land attacks happened in Western Europe during the winter of 1939–1940. During this time, the British and French built up their forces to get ready for a long war, and the Germans occupied Poland.

On 9 October, Adolf Hitler ordered plans for an invasion of the Low Countries. He wanted to use them as a base to attack Great Britain. He also wanted to prevent an attack by the Allied forces, which could threaten the Ruhr Area.

The Dutch were not ready to stop an invasion. When Hitler came to power, the Dutch had begun to re-arm, but more slowly than France or Belgium. Only in 1936 did the Dutch government start to increase their defense budget.

Dutch governments did not see Germany as a military threat. Partly this was because they did not want to cause problems with an important trade partner. The Dutch did not criticize Nazi policies. The Dutch made strict budget limits to fight the Great Depression, which was hard on Dutch society.

Hendrikus Colijn, the Dutch Prime Minister between 1933 and 1939, did not think Germany would go against Dutch neutrality and invade the Netherlands. Senior officers did not try to encourage improving military defence.

International stress grew in the late 1930s. Countries got concerned by the German occupation of the Rhineland in 1936; the Anschluss and Sudeten crisis of 1938; the German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia in 1939; and the Italian invasion of Albania in the spring of 1939.

These events made the Dutch government be more careful, but they limited their reaction as much as they could. Their most important reaction was to get 100,000 men ready to fight in April 1939.

After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the start of the Second World War, the Netherlands hoped to remain neutral. The Netherlands had been neutral during the First World War 25 years earlier.

The Dutch army was ready by 24 August and set up in trenches. Large amounts of money (almost 900 million guilders) were spent on defence. It was very difficult to obtain new weapons in wartime. The Dutch had ordered some equipment from Germany, which delayed deliveries.

A lot of the defence funds were used for the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). A lot of the money was spent on a plan to build three battle cruisers.

The Low Countries' position between France and Germany made the area a good route for either side to attack the other. In a 20 January 1940 radio speech, Winston Churchill tried to get the Dutch to join with the British. Both the Belgians and the Dutch refused, even though Belgium had learned about Germany's plans to attack.

The Allies planned to attack Germany in the summer of 1941.  The French thought about going against the neutrality of the Low Countries and attacking them if they had not joined the Allies before then. If Germany attacked the Netherlands, the Allies would have to go through Belgium. The Allies also worried that the Netherlands might allow a German army into Belgium through the southern part of their lands.

The Dutch government never decided what to do. Most of the ministers wanted to resist an attack. A minority refused to become a German ally. The Dutch tried to organize a peace settlement between the Allies and Germany.

After the German invasion of Norway and Denmark, followed by a warning by Japan that a German attack on the Netherlands was going to happen, the Dutch military knew they would have to fight. They started to prepare for war. Dutch border troops were put on alert.

Reports of a Fifth Column (enemy agents acting in a country) in Scandinavia caused fears that the Netherlands also had German agents and traitors. The Dutch prepared for attacks on airfields and ports.

On 19 April, the Netherlands declared a state of emergency. However, most civilians thought their country might not have a war. The Dutch hoped to avoid a war with terrible numbers of deaths. On 10 April, Britain and France again asked the Dutch to enter the war on the Allies' side. Again, the Dutch refused.

The Dutch forces

Dutch Army

In the Netherlands, a good defence was possible. The land helped the defender, and there was a strong industrial base, including an arms industry. The Wehrmacht lacked equipment and training, but the Dutch army was very weak.

The Germans had better equipment than the Netherlands. The modern German army had tanks and dive bombers (such as the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka). The Dutch army's armoured forces were only 39 armoured cars and five tankettes, and an air force of biplanes.

The Dutch military had not got much new equipment since before the First World War. During the 1920s, the Dutch government limited their defense budget because of an economic recession that lasted from 1920 until 1927. In that decade, only 1.5 million guilders per year was spent on equipment. Only in February 1936 was a bill passed creating a special 53.4 million guilder defence fund.

The lack of trained troops, a large professional organization, or good weapons made it hard to make the Dutch forces larger.  There was just enough artillery for the larger units. Light infantry battalions were spread all over the country to delay enemy movement.

They had many pillboxes, about two thousand in number, but the lines were thin. Modern large fortresses like the Belgian fortress of Eben Emael did not exist. The only modern fortification was the one at Kornwerderzand.

Total Dutch forces were 48 regiments of infantry, as well as 22 infantry battalions for border defence. In comparison, Belgium had 22 full divisions and 30 divisions when smaller units were included.

After September 1939, the Dutch tried to improve the situation, but with little result. Germany delayed its deliveries of weapons. France did not want to sell weapons to an army that would not take its side.  The Dutch could not get weapons from the other possible source, the Soviet Union, because the Dutch did not recognize their communist government.

Other countries had good armoured forces.  The Dutch Army had two groups of armoured cars, each with a dozen  vehicles;  A single platoon of five Carden-Loyd Mark VI tankettes was all the armour they had.

The Dutch Artillery had 676 howitzers and field guns: 310 Krupp 75 mm field guns; 52 105 mm Bofors howitzers, the only really modern pieces; 144 obsolete Krupp 125 mm guns; 40 150 mm sFH13's; 72 Krupp 150 mm L/24 howitzers and 28 Vickers 152 mm L/15 howitzers.

As antitank-guns 386 Böhler 47 mm L/39s were available, but there were not enough. There were another three hundred old  6 Veld (57 mm) and 8 Staal (84 mm) field guns. Only eight of the 120 modern 105 mm pieces ordered from Germany had been delivered at the time of the invasion. Most artillery was horse-drawn.

The Dutch Infantry used about 2,200 7.92 mm Schwarzlose M.08 machine guns, and eight hundred Vickers machine guns. Many of these were in the pillboxes; each battalion had a heavy machine gun company of twelve.

The Dutch infantry squads had a light machine gun, the M.20 Lewis machine gun of which about eight thousand were available. This weapon often jammed and it was not good for attacks. Most Dutch infantry had the Dutch Mannlicher rifle. This weapon had been used for over 40 years, and it was out of date, but the Dutch military did not have the money to replace it.

There were but six 80 mm mortars for each regiment. This made it hard for the Dutch infantry to fight.

Despite the Netherlands having the company of Philips, one of Europe's largest producers of radio equipment, the Dutch army mostly used telephones. Only the Artillery had been given 225 radio sets.

Risk of air assault
After the German attack on Denmark and Norway in April 1940, when the Germans used large numbers of airborne troops, the Dutch were worried about a similar attack.

To stop this type of attack, five infantry battalions were put at the main ports and airbases, such as The Hague airfield of Ypenburg and the Rotterdam airfield of Waalhaven. These were given AA-guns, two tankettes and twelve of the 24 operational armoured cars.  The Dutch put 32 hospital ships throughout the country and fifteen trains to help make troop movements easier.

Dutch Air Forces
The Dutch air force had 155 aircraft: 28 Fokker G.1 twin-engine destroyers; 31 Fokker D.XXI and seven Fokker D.XVII fighters; ten twin-engined Fokker T.V, fifteen Fokker C.X and 35 Fokker C.V light bombers, twelve Douglas DB-8 dive bombers (used as fighters) and seventeen Koolhoven FK-51 reconnaissance aircraft. 74 of the 155 aircraft were biplanes. Of these aircraft 125 worked.

The air force school used three Fokker D.XXI, six Fokker D.XVII, a single Fokker G.I, a single Fokker T-V and seven Fokker C.V, along with several training airplanes. Another forty aircraft were the marine air service along with about an equal number of reserve and training craft.

There was a Dutch military aircraft industry, consisting of Fokker and Koolhoven. However, the Dutch military could not afford new planes.

Training and readiness
The Dutch Army was poorly equipped. It was also poorly trained. There was little experience leading forces bigger than the battalion level. From 1932 until 1936, the Dutch Army did not hold summer field exercises to save money. Also, soldiers lacked many skills. Until 1938, those who were joined only served for 24 weeks, just enough to receive basic infantry training. That same year, service time was increased to eleven months. There was not many professional military staff. In 1940 there were only 1206 professional officers.

Most available time was spent constructing defences. During this period, munition shortages limited live fire training, and units were not organized. In May 1940, the Dutch Army was not ready for battle. It could not do a major attack or move around on the battlefield.

German generals and Hitler thought that the Dutch military was weak. They expected that Holland could be captured in about three to five days.

Dutch defensive strategy

Structural elements

In the 17th century, the Dutch Republic had developed a defensive system called The Dutch Water Line. It could protect all major cities in the west by flooding part of the countryside. In the early 19th century this line was shifted to the east, beyond Utrecht. Later, fortresses were built.

This new position was called the New Holland Water Line. The line was given new pillboxes in 1940. The line was below sea level. This allowed it to be flooded with a few feet of water. This was too shallow for boats, but deep enough to turn the soil into mud. The area west of the New Holland Water Line was called Fortress Holland (Dutch: Vesting Holland; German: Festung Holland). The eastern side was covered by Lake IJssel and the southern side protected by three rivers. It was expected to hold out for a long period of time.

Some people thought the defences would protect the country for three months without any Allied help.  Before the war the intention was to move to this position, and hope that Germany would only travel through the southern provinces on its way to Belgium and leave Holland undamaged.

In 1939, this attitude made it impossible to negotiate with the Allies about defence. Proposals by German diplomats that the Dutch government would accept a German advance into the country were rejected.

From September 1939 a more easterly Main Defence Line (MDL) was built. This second defensive position was dug on orders from the commander of the Field Army, Lieutenant-General Jan Joseph Godfried baron van Voorst tot Voorst. This line was extended by a southern part between the river Maas and the Belgian border. In the south the goal was to delay the Germans so that the French could advance.

Fourth and Second Army Corps were put at the Grebbe Line; Third Army Corps were put at the Peel-Raam Position with the Light Division behind it to cover its southern side. Brigade A and B were positioned between the Lower Rhine and the Maas. First Army Corps was a reserve in the Fortress Holland, the southern edge of which was protected by another ten battalions and the eastern side by six battalions. All these lines were protected by pillboxes.

Positioning of troops

In front of this Main Defence Line was the IJssel-Maaslinie. It had pillboxes and fourteen "border battalions". Late in 1939 General Van Voorst tot Voorst wanted to use the rivers as a defence. He proposed a battle at the crossing sites near Arnhem and Gennep to force the German divisions to use a lot of their energy before they had reached the MDL.

This was deemed too risky by the Dutch government and General Reijnders. The Government wanted the army to resist at the Grebbe Line and Peel Raam Position, and then fall back to the Fortress Holland. Reijnders was not given full military authority in the defence zones. On 5 February 1940 he resigned because of these disagreements with his superiors. He was replaced by General Henry G. Winkelman who decided that in the north the Grebbe Line would be where the battle was to be fought, partly because it would be easier to counterattack.

During the Phoney War the Dutch said they were neutral. In secret, the Dutch military talked with both Belgium and France to organize a common defence to a German invasion. This failed because of differences of opinion about which strategy to follow.

Coordinating with Belgium
Belgium, though it said it was neutral, had made arrangements for working with Allied troops. This made it more difficult for the Dutch to make arrangements with the Belgians. He did not approve of a plan by Van Voorst tot Voorst to occupy the "Orange Position to form a continuous line with the Belgian lines.

When Winkelman took over command, he proposed on 21 February that Belgium would set up a connecting line with the Peel Raam Position along the Belgian part of the Zuid-Willemsvaart. The Belgians refused to do this unless the Dutch sent in new troops in Limburg. The Dutch had no forces available. Repeated Belgian requests to defend the Orange Position were refused by Winkelman.

Therefore, the Belgians decided to withdraw, in an invasion, all their troops to their main defence line, the Albert Canal. This created a gap forty kilometres wide. The French were asked to fill it. Now the French Commander in Chief General Maurice Gamelin was more than interested in including the Dutch in his continuous line. But he would not stretch his supply lines that far unless the Belgians and Dutch would take the allied side. When both nations refused, Gamelin said he would occupy a position near Breda.

Winkelman decided on 30 March to abandon the Peel-Raam Position after a German attack. He withdrew his Third Army Corps to the Linge. This Waal-Linge Position was planned to have pillboxes; the budget for pillboxes was increased with a hundred million guilders.

French strategy
In addition to the Dutch Army and the German 18th Army, a third force would operate on Dutch soil: the French 7th Army. Both the French and the Germans saw the possibility of a surprise attack.  For the Germans this would mean bypassing the Antwerp-Namur line.

Rapid forces were needed to protect important locations from the enemy. Long before the Germans did, the French had thought of using airborne troops to do speedy attacks. A naval division and an infantry division were set to go to Zealand to block the Western Scheldt against a German crossing.

French Commander in Chief General Maurice Gamelin feared the Dutch would surrender or accept German protection. He reassigned the former French strategic reserve, the 7th Army, to go in front of Antwerp. The force consisted of the 16th Army Corps, the 9th Motorised and the 4th Infantry Division; and the 1st Army Corps, consisting of the 25th Motorised Infantry Division and the 21st Infantry Division.

This army was later reinforced by the 1st Mechanised Light Division, an armoured division of the French Cavalry. Together with the two divisions in Zealand, seven French divisions were to be used.

Although the French troops would have more motorised units than the Germans, they could not hope to reach their places in the battle before the enemy did. Their only prospect of beating the Germans was using rail transport.

They would have to build up their forces near Breda. They needed the Dutch troops in the Peel-Raam Position to delay the Germans for a few extra days to allow French forces to move in and dig trenches. These consisted of the reconnaissance units of the armoured and motorised divisions, with armoured cars. These would be put into two task forces.

German strategy and forces
During the plans for Fall Gelb the idea of leaving the Fortress Holland alone was considered. The first plan of 19 October 1939 suggested a full occupation. In the version of 29 October it was proposed to limit the invasion to a line south of Venlo. In the Holland-Weisung (Holland Directive) of 15 November it was decided to conquer the entire south, but in the north to advance no further than the Grebbe Line, and to occupy the Frisian Isles.

Hermann Göring wanted a full capture of Holland as he needed the Dutch airfields to use against Britain. He was afraid the Allies might reinforce Fortress Holland and use the airfields to bomb German cities and troops. A swift defeat would also free troops for other sectors.

On 17 January 1940 they decided to conquer all of the Netherlands. However, few units were available for this task. The main effort of Fall Gelb would be made in the centre, between Namur and Sedan. The attack at central Belgium was only a trick; and the attack at Fortress Holland only a trick as well.

Although both the 6th and 18th Army were in place at the Dutch border, the first, larger force would move south of Venlo to Belgium. This would leave just the 18th Army under General Georg von Küchler to attack the Dutch main force.

Of all German armies in the battle, this was the weakest. It contained only four regular infantry divisions (the 207th, 227th, 254th and 256th Infantry Divisions), assisted by three reserve divisions (208th, 225th, and 526th Infantry Divisions). Six of these divisions were units created in August 1939 from territorial Landwehr units. They had few professional officers and little fighting experience.

Like the Dutch Army, most soldiers (88%) lacked training. The seventh division was the 526th Infantry Division, which lacked combat training. The German divisions had 17,807 men, fifty percent larger than their Dutch counterparts. They had twice their firepower, but even so they did mot have enough men for a successful attack.

To add more men, the only German cavalry division, the 1st Kavalleriedivision was told to capture the weakly defended provinces east of the river IJssel. A landing in Holland near Enkhuizen was to be attempted, using barges. As both efforts were unlikely to do well, the regular divisions were reinforced by the SS-Verfügungsdivision (including SS-Standarten Der Führer, Deutschland and Germania) and Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. These would attack the Dutch fortified positions. Still this added only 1 division to the equation.

To ensure a victory the Germans used new methods. The Germans had trained two airborne divisions. The first of these, the 7. Flieger-Division, was paratroopers; the second, the 22nd Luftlande-Infanteriedivision, of airborne infantry. The airborne troops would capture the airfields around The Hague, and then capture that government, together with the Dutch High Command and Queen Wilhelmina.

The plan, Fall Festung, had been developed by Hitler. If the first attack did not succeed, the bridges at Rotterdam, Dordrecht and Moerdijk would be captured to allow a mechanised force to move in. This force was to be the German 9th Panzer Division.  They were the only German armoured division having just two tank battalions. the total number of tanks in the group was 141. The plan was for them to go through a gap in the Dutch lines created by the 254th and 256th Infantry Divisions. Then they would join up with them, forming the XXVI. Armeekorps. At the same time, an attack would be made against the Grebbe Line in the east by the 207th and 227th Infantry Divisions, united to form X. Armeekorps, to fight the Dutch Army. The plan was to force the Dutch back to the east front of the Fortress Holland or beyond. If the Dutch did not surrender on the first day, the Eighteenth Army would attack Fortress Holland on the third day from the south.

The Oster affair
The German people and troops disliked the idea of going against Dutch neutrality. The Germans said the invasion was to stop the Allies from occupying the Low Countries. Some German officers did not like the Nazi government and were also unhappy with the invasion.

One of them was Colonel Hans Oster, a German intelligence officer. In March 1939 he began to pass information to his friend, a Dutch military officer in Berlin Major Gijsbertus J. Sas. This information included the German attack date.  Sas informed the Allies. Sas knowing the date of the attack on Denmark and Norway was not noticed. Though he said a German armoured division would try to attack the Netherlands and that there was a plan to capture the Queen, the Dutch defence plan was not changed.

On 4 May Sas warned that an attack was coming soon. When in the evening of 9 May Oster phoned his friend saying the attack would be soon, the Dutch troops were put on alert.

Oster was a leader of the German resistance from 1938 to 1943, and was one of those hanged after the 20 July 1944 bomb plot to kill Hitler.

The battle

10 May

On the morning of 10 May 1940, Germany attacked the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Luxembourg.

In the night the Luftwaffe flew into Dutch lands. One group, Kampfgeschwader 4 (KG 4), attacked the Dutch airfields. Led by Oberst (Colonel) Martin Fiebig, KG 4 attacked the naval airfield at De Kooy, destroying 35 aircraft. Fiebig was shot down and spent five days as a Dutch prisoner of war.

KG 4 also attacked Amsterdam-Schiphol, where the Dutch lost a third of their medium bombers, and The Hague airfields where KG 4 destroyed half of the 21 defending fighters. KG 4 lost 11 Heinkel He 111 bombers on 10 May and three Junkers Ju 88s; KG 30 and 54 another nine bombers. Jagdgeschwader 26 (JG 26) and Zerstörergeschwader 26 (ZG 26) shot down 25 Dutch aircraft for a loss of nine fighters, with Albert Kesselring's Luftflotte 2 destroying 41.

The Dutch were left with just 70 aircraft by the end of the day. They continued to fight the Luftwaffe, shooting down 13 German fighter aircraft by 14 May.

Paratroopers were landed near the airfields. Dutch anti-aircraft batteries shot down numerous Ju 52 transport planes. German Ju 52 losses in the battle were about 250 planes.

The attack on The Hague was a failure. The paratroopers did not capture the main airfield at Ypenburg in time for the airborne infantry to land in their Junkers. Five Landsverks, assisted by machine guns, destroyed the eighteen Junkers, killing many troops.

When the airstrip was blocked by wrecks the remaining planes landed in meadows or on the beach, spreading out the troops. The small airfield of Ockenburg was captured by the Germans.

The airfield of Valkenburg was occupied. However, the landing strip was still being built and the water level had not yet been lowered: planes landing there sank in the soft soil.

None of the airfields could be used to land new troops. The paratroopers occupied Ypenburg but did not get into The Hague. They were blocked by Dutch troops. Early in the afternoon they fired on by three Dutch artillery batteries. Dutch artillery drove away the German troops from the other two airfields.

The attack on Rotterdam was much more successful. Twelve Heinkel He 59 seaplanes landed in the city. They captured the Willemsbrug, a bridge over the Nieuwe Maas. At the same time the military airfield of Waalhaven was attacked by airborne forces.

Here an infantry battalion was close to the airfield. The paratroopers landed near them. A fight followed. The first group of Junkers suffered no losses and the transports continued to land. In the end the Dutch defenders were defeated. The Germans occupied IJsselmonde.

The Royal Netherlands Navy's torpedo boats Z5 and TM 51 attacked the Willemsbrug.  The destroyer HNLMS Van Galen sailed up the Nieuwe Waterweg to bomb the airfield, but the ship got bombed. A plan to send the gunboats HNLMS Flores and HNLMS Johan Maurits van Nassau was stopped.

At the Island of Dordrecht the Dordrecht bridge was captured but the Dutch fought on.  The long Moerdijk bridges were captured and fortified on the southern side.

 The Germans, doing a plan approved by Hitler, tried to capture the IJssel and Maas bridges. During the night of 10 May they approached the bridges. Most of these attempts failed and the bridges were blown up. The exception was the Gennep railway bridge.

An armoured train crossed it followed by a troop train, which unloaded an infantry battalion behind the defence line.

Generally German soldiers behaved in a civilised manner towards the Dutch population, buying food at the shops.

After the failed assaults on the bridges, the German divisions began crossing over the rivers IJssel and Maas. The first attacks were destroyed by fire from the pillboxes.

At most places, bombing destroyed the pillboxes and the infantry divisions crossed the river by building pontoon bridges. At Arnhem, Leibstandarte Der Fuehrer led the attack and advanced to the Grebbe Line, followed by 207. Infanteriedivision.

A withdrawal was planned for the first night after the invasion, in the darkness. Due to the rapid German advance a quick retreat was ordered at 06:45. The corps joined "Brigade G", six battalions already occupying the Waal-Linge line.

The Light Division, based at Vught, was the only force the Dutch Army had that could move about. Its withdrawal had been done a day early. Its regiments had reached the Noord river in the evening.

Meanwhile, on the evening of the 10th, around 22:00, French troops using Panhard 178 armoured cars started to arrive at the Dutch border. After them, the French 1st Mechanised Light Division moved forward. Attempts to get the French to move forward with the Dutch troops towards Noord-Brabant did not work well.

When a first attack had been stopped, an attack at the Main Defense Line was postponed because most artillery had not arrived. In the early evening, they attacked even though there was only one 105 mm battery.

Colonel Schmidt at 20:30 ordered the Peel-Raam Position to be abandoned. He told his troops to go to the west at a new line at the Zuid-Willemsvaart canal.

In the North, by the end of the day, 1. Kavalleriedivision had reached the line Meppel–Groningen. They were delayed by Dutch teams blowing up 236 bridges. Dutch troop strength in that area was weak.

In the south, the six border battalions in the province of Limburg delayed the advance of the German Sixth Army. Before noon Maastricht had surrendered. The Germans did not capture the main bridge intact. This delayed the crossing by the 4th Panzer Division until the next day.

11 May
On 11 May the Dutch commander General Winkelman had two goals. First of all he wanted to kill the German airborne troops. He thought that the German possession of the Moerdijk bridges would stop the movement of new Allied troops.

The second goal was to help the French army to make a strong defensive line in North Brabant.

Little was achieved this day. The attack by the Light Division against the airborne troops on IJsselmonde failed. The bridge over the river Noord was defended by the German paratroopers, and it was impossible to cross it. Several attempts to cross the river by boats were not that successful.

At 10:15, the Light Division was told to join the Dutch troops on the Island of Dordrecht. After killing German troops on the Island of Dordrecht the division was to advance into IJsselmonde over the Dordrecht bridge to reach Rotterdam.

Earlier during the day, two attempts were made by Dutch battalions to attack the western side of the German line. The First Battalion tried to attack the bridge at Barendrecht into IJsselmonde. The second battalion tried to capture more land.

Although its crossings were successful, the first battalion was attacked by the Germans. The second battalion had many men being taken prisoner.

Then a French force and another Dutch border battalion attacked the southern Moerdijk bridge, but the armoured cars were bombed by German Stukas and had to retreat.

In Rotterdam, the Dutch failed to kill the German airborne troops from their bridge on the northern bank of the Maas. The two remaining Dutch bombers failed to destroy the Willemsbrug. None of the attempts to kill the groups of 1600 paratroopers and airlanded forces was successful.

In North Brabant, the situation got worse. The French commanders of the 7th Army had expected that Dutch fighting would give them four days to build up a defensive line near Breda. However, the best three divisions had been moved to the north and the remaining forces were retreating.

The withdrawal of the Peel Division from the Peel-Raam Position to the Zuid-Willemsvaart, a canal to the west, meant leaving behind their trenches and artillery for a totally unprepared line. The eastern bank of the canal was higher than the western bank, providing excellent cover for the attackers.

One part of the canal, near Heeswijk, was left undefended; as this area contained a bridge which was not destroyed, the Germans were able to cross the canal around 13:00.

A second crossing at Erp, led to a collapse of the line. By the end of the 11th, the Germans had crossed the Zuid-Willemsvaart at most places and the Peel Division had fallen apart. The French refused to advance further to the northeast than Tilburg, apart from some armoured cars that went as far as Berlicum.

Winkelman asked the British government to sent an Army Corps to add to allied positions in the area and bomb Waalhaven airfield.

Motorised elements of SS Standarte "Der Fuehrer" had reached the southernmost part of the Grebbe Line, in front of the Grebbeberg, on the evening of the 10th. This Main Defense Line sector was protected by a line of outposts and two groups of infantry.

At about half past three in the morning of the 11th, German artillery started bombing the outposts. At dawn, two battalions of Der Fuehrer attacked. As the German bombing had cut the telephone lines, no artillery could be requested by the Dutch defenders.

The vegetation offered good cover for the attackers. At noon, the Germans broke a hole at the extreme north. By evening, all outposts were held by the Germans.

The commander of 2nd Army Corps, Major-General Jacob Harberts, did not realise that motorised SS troops had been involved in the attack. He thought that the outposts had surrendered to a small German force. He ordered a night attack by the single reserve battalion of 4th Division.

This attack was abandoned. However, heavy Dutch artillery fire caused the Germans to abandon their plans for a night attack.

Meanwhile, in the North, 1. Kavalleriedivision advanced through the province of Friesland, reaching Sneek in the evening. Most Dutch troops had been evacuated from the north.

12 May

On the morning of 12 May General Winkelman still had hope. He thought a defence line could be set up in North Brabant with the help of the French. He also expected that the Dutch could kill the German airborne forces. He was not aware of any danger to the Grebbe Line.

9. Panzerdivision crossed the Meuse in the early morning of 11 May. It could not advance quickly over roads filled with infantry. The armoured division was told to join with the airborne troops as soon as the Peel-Raam Position had been captured by the infantry forces.

Because the German 6th Army was threatening its right side and there was no time to prepare a defence line, Gamelin ordered the 7th Army to withdraw its left side. 2e Brigade Légère Mécanique retreated to the south.

The 9th Panzer Division took Colonel Schmidt prisoner. The Dutch troops in the province lost all command. Shortly after noon the German armoured cars got thirty kilometres more to the west, cutting off the Fortress Holland from the Allied main force. At 16:45 they had reached the bridges.

At 13:35 Gamelin ordered a withdrawal to Antwerp of all French troops in North-Brabant.

The Light Division tried to recapture the Island of Dordrecht by advancing with four battalions with little artillery support. On its left side, where there was almost no enemies, the advance went well. The battalion on the right side ran into an attacking German battalion. In the street fighting the German troops blocked the battalion. The other Dutch units then halted their advance around noon. No attack was made that day.

In Rotterdam and around The Hague little was done against the paratroopers. Most Dutch commanders did not attack.

In the east the Germans attacked the Dutch defenders on the Grebbeberg. After artillery bombing in the morning, at around noon a battalion of Der Fuehrer attacked the main line, occupied by a Dutch company.

The Germans got through the thin line. A second German battalion then attacked to the north. Dutch artillery, though equal in strength to the Germans, did not fire on the enemy infantry.

Due to a lack of numbers, training, and heavy weapons, the attacks failed against the well-trained SS troops. By the evening the Germans had the area under their control. Spotting a weak point, one of the SS battalion commanders, Obersturmbannführer Hilmar Wäckerle, attacked. The defenders mostly abandoned their positions. The SS company became surrounded.

The earlier German advance later caused the main line to be abandoned for over two miles to the north because the troops there feared an attack from behind.

The Dutch knew that the forces on the Grebbe Line would not be strong enough to stop all attacks by themselves. They were intended to delay an attack long enough for new troops to be sent. In the late evening it was decided to attack from the north the next day.

In the North, the Wons position had a long perimeter of about nine kilometres, which gave space for retreating troops. On 12 May units with a combined strength of only two battalions were still present, so the line was weakly held. The first German unit to arrive broke through. This forced the defenders to withdraw to the Enclosure Dike.

General Winkelman ordered the artillery bin the Hoekse Waard to try to destroy the Moerdijk bridges and sent a team to Rotterdam to blow up the Willemsbrug. He also ordered the oil reserves of Royal Dutch Shell at Pernis to be set on fire.

The Dutch government asked Winston Churchill for three British divisions to battle the Germans. The new prime minister said he did not have any reserves; however, three British torpedo boats were sent to Lake IJssel. Also, 2nd Welsh Guard battalion was prepared to be sent, but it was too late.

The German command was very happy with the day's events. von Bock had requested another Army Corps. The French were retreating. von Bock decided to follow the French south towards Antwerp. Some forces would be sent to advance north with 254. Infanteriedivision, most of 9. Panzerdivision, and SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.

13 May

In the early morning of 13 May General Winkelman told the Dutch government that there were serious problems. On land the Dutch had been cut off from the Allied front and no major Allied landings were planned by sea. Without support, there was no hope of successful resistance.

German tanks might quickly pass through Rotterdam; Winkelman had already ordered all antitank-guns to be placed around The Hague, to protect the government. However, a collapse of the Dutch defences might still be prevented if attacks could seal off the southern front near Dordrecht and restore the eastern line at the Grebbeberg. Therefore, the cabinet decided to continue the fight, giving the general the power to surrender the Army when he thought he had to.

Queen Wilhelmina was brought to safety; she departed around noon from Hoek van Holland, where a British Irish Guards battalion was present, on HMS Hereward, a British destroyer, and went to England.

The previous evening, the Queen's only child and Princess Juliana, together with her husband and their children, had departed from IJmuiden on HMS Codrington  for Harwich.

As the Queen was part of the government, when she left, the cabinet had to whether to follow her or remain. After many discussions it was decided to leave also: the ministers sailed at 19:20 from Hoek van Holland on HMS Windsor to form a government in exile in London.

Three Dutch merchant ships, escorted by British warships, transferred government gold and diamonds to the United Kingdom.

While two tank companies of 9. Panzerdivision remained to pursue the French, the other four began to cross the Moerdijk bridge at 05:20. Two staff companies with tanks also went to the northern side. The Dutch attempted to block the German armour.

At around 06:00 the last medium bomber, a Fokker T. V,  dropped two bombs on the bridge. The one bomb that hit the bridge did not explode. The bomber was shot down. The Dutch tried to destroy the bridge by artillery fire, but the bridge was only slightly damaged. Attempts to flood the Island of Dordrecht failed.

The Light Division tried to advance to the west. However, two of the four battalions could not recapture the suburbs of Dordrecht. When the other two battalions approached the main road, they were met by a few dozen German tanks.

The battalions were hit by a Stuka bombing and they fled to the east. 47mm and 75 mm batteries halted the attack of the German tanks. The left part of the Light Division then withdrew to the Alblasserwaard at around 13:00.

A tank company also tried to capture the Dordrecht, but it was ordered to retreat after heavy street fighting. in At least two Panzerkampfwagen IIs were destroyed and three tanks heavily damaged. All Dutch troops were withdrawn from the island in the night.

German armoured forces advanced north over the Dordrecht bridge into IJsselmonde island. Three tanks, two PzKpfw. IIs and a Panzerkampfwagen III attacked the Barendrecht bridge into the Hoekse Waard. All of them were destroyed by a single 47 mm antitank-gun. Though the Germans did not make another attack, this area was abandoned by the Dutch troops.

In Rotterdam a last attempt was made to blow up the Willemsbrug. Two Dutch companies attacked the bridge. The bridge was reached and the fifty German almost surrendered. However, the attack was stopped because of heavy fire from the other side of the river.

In the North, the commander of 1. Kavalleriedivision, Major General Kurt Feldt, had to go over the Enclosure Dike because of a lack of ships. The main fortifications contained 47 mm antitank-guns. There was no cover for any attacker.

On 13 May the position was reinforced by a 20 mm anti aircraft battery. It had been Feldt's intention to destroy the position by mortars, but the train transporting it had been blocked on 10 May by a blown railway bridge at Winschoten.

Several air attacks on 13 May had little effect. In the late afternoon five sections tried to attack under cover of an artillery bombing, but soon fled after being fired upon.

In the East the Germans tried to attack the Grebbe Line by using the other division of X. AK, 227. Infanteriedivision. The line was in this area defended by the Dutch 2nd Infantry Division. Two German regiments were to attack. The 366. Infanterieregiment was hit by Dutch artillery fire and had to withdraw. This led to the failure of the attack by 227 Infanteriedivision.

On the south of the Grebbe Line, the Grebbeberg, the Germans were now using three SS battalions. During the evening and night of 12–13 May the Dutch had a dozen However, not all of these units could be put together to attack the main line.

This Dutch attack was delayed for several hours. When it started in the morning of 13 May, it ran into an attack by two battalions of Der Fuehrer. A fight followed in which the Dutch were beaten by the SS troops. Soon this resulted in a  withdrawal of the brigade. The Dutch lost when the Grebbeberg area was bombed by 27 Ju 87 Stukas.

Meanwhile, 207. Infanteriedivision was sent into battle at the Grebbeberg. The first German attackers were stopped with serious losses. A second attack managed to get past the trench line, which then was captured after heavy fighting.

The Germans planned to attack and take the Rhenen line and the village of Achterberg. However, the Dutch had already disappeared.

The Stuka bombing scared the reserves at Rhenen. In the morning these troops left the battlefield because of German fire. In the late afternoon most of 4th Infantry Division was fleeing westwards.

The German had expected that the Dutch would attempt to fill any gaps in the line. The Dutch planned to send two regiments of the Dutch 3rd Army Corps north to fill any gaps.

But Dutch command had lost control, so they could not get their defences set up again. A  wide gap had appeared in the defences. At 20:30 Van Voorst tot Voorst ordered the three Army Corps to abandon the Grebbe Line and the Waal-Linge Position and to retreat.

14 May

Despite his loss of hope and the power  he had been given to surrender the Army, General Winkelman avoided surrendering until he had to. He wanted to battle the German troops for as long as possible, to help the Allied war effort.

In the North, a German artillery bombardment of the Kornwerderzand Position began at 09:00. However, the German batteries were forced to move away after being fired on from the 15 cm. aft cannon of Hr. Ms. Johan Maurits van Nassau. Feldt now decided to land on the coast of North-Holland.

A few barges were found; only after the surrender was the crossing done. During this operation one barge sunk and the others got lost. Winkelman on 12 May ordered the defence of an "Amsterdam Position" along the North Sea Canal, but only weak forces were available.

In the East, the field army withdrew from the Grebbe Line to the East Front. The new position had some problems. The flooding was mostly not yet ready and the earthworks had not yet been constructed.

On IJsselmonde the German forces prepared to cross the Maas in Rotterdam, which was defended by about eight Dutch battalions. Crossings would be attempted in two sectors. The main attack would take place in the centre of the city, with the German 9th Panzer Division advancing over the Willemsbrug.

Then SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler would cross. East of Rotterdam, a battalion of the 16th Infantry Regiment of 22. Luftlandedivision would cross on boats.

The Germans decided to use air support. Kampfgeschwader 54, using Heinkel He 111 bombers, was shifted from Sixth to Eighteenth Army.

Generals Kurt Student and Schmidt wanted a limited air attack to temporarily stop the defences. However, Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring, worried about his surrounded airborne troops, wanted a total bombing of Rotterdam.

At 09:00 a German messenger crossed the Willemsbrug to bring a message Schmidt to Colonel Pieter Scharroo, the Dutch commander of Rotterdam, demanding a surrender of the city. If an answer had not been received within two hours, severe destruction would be done.

Scharroo did not receive the message until 10:30. He did not want to surrender. He got a new message signed by Schmidt and that required an answer by 16:20. At 13:20 two groups of Heinkels arrived.

Schmidt ordered red flares to be fired to signal that the bombing was to be stopped, but only the squadron from the southwest stopped its attack, after their first three planes had dropped their bombs.

The other 54 Heinkels dropped 1308 bombs, destroying the inner city and killing 814 civilians. The fires destroyed about 24,000 houses, making almost 80,000 people homeless.

At 15:50 Scharroo surrendered to Schmidt in person. Göring had ordered a second bombing of the city to be carried out unless the whole of Rotterdam was occupied. When Schmidt heard the order, he sent a message at 17:15 claiming the city was taken, but this was not true. The bombers were called back just in time.

The surrender of the Dutch Army

Winkelman at first intended to continue the fight. Bombings were not seen as a reason to surrender. The Hague could still fight off an armoured attack.

He got a message from Colonel Cuno Eduard Willem baron van Voorst tot Voorst, the commander of the city of Utrecht, that the Germans demanded its surrender. Messages were dropped by planes saying that only surrender would stop the city from being destroyed.

Winkelman thought the Germans would bomb any city offering any resistance, Since he was told to avoid suffering and since the Dutch military was weak, he decided to surrender.

All army units were informed at 16:50 by of his decision and ordered to destroy their weapons and surrender to the nearest German units. At 17:20 the German envoy in The Hague was informed. At around 19:00 Winkelman gave a radio speech informing the Dutch people. This was also how the German command became aware the Dutch had surrendered.

On the morning of 14 May the commander of the Royal Dutch Navy, Vice-Admiral Johannes Furstner, left the country to continue the fight. Dutch naval vessels were generally not included in the surrender. Eight ships had already departed, some smaller vessels were sunk, and nine others sailed for England in the evening of 14 May. The Hr. Ms. Johan Maurits van Nassau was sunk by German bombers while crossing.

The commander of the main Dutch naval port of Den Helder, Rear-Admiral Hoyte Jolles, decided that his base, with 10,000 troops, its own air service, and land defences, should continue to fight. Winkelman had to convince him to obey the surrender order. Large parts of the Dutch Army did not want to accept the surrender.

At 05:00 on 15 May a German messenger reached The Hague, inviting Winkelman to Rijsoord for a meeting with von Küchler to make a written surrender. Winkelman surrendered the army, naval and air forces. The document was signed at 10:15

The fighting in Zealand
The province of Zealand not part of the surrender. Fighting continued alongside French troops. The Dutch forces in the province had eight full battalions of army and naval troops.

They were commanded by Rear-Admiral Hendrik Jan van der Stad.  The area was under naval command because of the naval port of Flushing on the island of Walcheren. The northern islands of the province were almost undefended apart from some platoons.

The defence of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, the Dutch part of Flanders, was left to the Allies. The main Dutch army forces were in Zuid-Beveland east of Walcheren. They tried to block this route to Vlissingen.

Zuid-Beveland was connected to the coast of North Brabant. At its eastern end, Bath Position was defended by an infantry battalion. At its western end was the Zanddijk Position, occupied by three battalions.

After on 10 May three French motorised units went to North Brabant. From 11 May the area was reinforced by two French infantry divisions: the 60e Division d'Infanterie, a B-class division, and the newly formed naval 68e Division d'Infanterie. Part of their equipment was brought by ship.

Most troops remained where two of the eight Dutch battalions and two border companies were located. Only two French regiments were sent to the northern bank.

On 13 May the Dutch troops were placed under French command and 68e Division d'Infanterie was transferred to the 7th Army.

There was poor communications, misunderstandings and disagreements between the Dutch and the French. The Dutch considered the Bath and Zanddijk Positions to be defendable because of the flooding.  However, the French commander General Pierre-Servais Durand wanted his troops hidden behind obstacles.

On the evening of 13 May one regiment, the 271e of 68e Division d'Infanterie, occupied the Canal through Zuid-Beveland. The 224e of 60 Division d'Infanterie stayed in the area separating the island of Walcheren from Zuid-Beveland. The Allied forces were not grouped together enough, which enabled the Germans to defeat them even though they had less men.

On 14 May the Germans had occupied almost all of North Brabant. SS-Standarte Deutschland reached the Bath Position. This cut off the retreat of 27e Groupe de Reconnaissance de Division d'Infanterie, which was destroyed defending Bergen-op-Zoom.  The morale of the defenders of the Bath Position weakened by news that Winkelman had surrendered. Many decided that it was useless that Zealand kept fighting as the last remaining province.

An artillery bombing on the position in the evening of 14 May caused the commanding officers to leave. Then the troops left.

In the morning of 15 May SS-Standarte Deutschland approached the Zanddijk Position. A first attack around 08:00 on the northern sector was stopped, as the Germans had to advance over a narrow dike. However, the bombing caused the battalions in the main positions to flee, and the entire line was abandoned around 14:00.

On 16 May SS-Standarte Deutschland approached the Canal through Zuid-Beveland. The French 271e Régiment d'Infanterie was partly dug in and helped by three Dutch battalions. An air bombing was done that morning. The first German crossings around 11:00 led to a complete collapse of the defence. On 16 May the island of Tholen was captured. On 17 May Schouwen-Duiveland was captured.

The commanders of the Dutch troops on South-Beveland refused commands to attack the Germans. On 17 May a night attack at 03:00 failed. The Germans now demanded the surrender of the island. When this was refused they bombed Arnemuiden and Flushing. Middelburg, the province's capital city, was shelled by artillery, its inner city partially burning down.

The heavy bombing made the French defenders lose hope. The Germans managed to capture a bridge around noon. The few Dutch troops on Walcheren, about three companies, stopped fighting.

In the evening the  Germans threatened to attack the French forces in Flushing, but most troops were evacuated over the Western Scheldt.

After North-Beveland had surrendered on 18 May, Zeeuws-Vlaanderen was the last remaining unoccupied Dutch territory. On orders of the French, all Dutch troops were withdrawn on 19 May to Ostend in Belgium. On 27 May all of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen had been occupied.

Aftermath
Following the Dutch defeat, Queen Wilhelmina established a government-in-exile in England. The German occupation began on 17 May 1940. It would be five years before the entire country was liberated. Over 210,000 Dutch people became victims of war, including 104,000 Jews and other minorities, who were killed because of their race (genocide). Another 70,000 more Dutch people died from poor nutrition or limited medical services.

Related pages
Battle of Belgium
Battle of France

Notes

References

C.W. Star Busmann. Partworks and Encyclopedia of World War II

Hooton, E.R. Phoenix Triumphant: The Rise and Rise of the Luftwaffe. Brockhampton Press, 1994. .

 Goossens, Allert M.A. (2011) History Site "War Over Holland – the Dutch struggle May 1940"

Other websitess

The Battle of the Netherlands 1940

Battle
Battle
Battles involving France
Battles involving Germany
Battles involving the Netherlands
Battles involving the United Kingdom
European battles of World War II
Battle

German invasion of the Netherlands


USS John Hood (DD-655) was a  of the United States Navy, named for Rear Admiral John Hood (1859–1919).

John Hood was laid down 12 October 1942 by Gulf Shipbuilding Corp., Chickasaw, Ala.; launched 25 October 1943, sponsored by Miss Amelia O'Neal; and commissioned 7 June 1944.

World War II

After shakedown in the Caribbean, the new destroyer departed for the Pacific 21 August 1944, arriving Mare Island Naval Shipyard 6 September. She sailed on to the Aleutian Islands for duty with the North Pacific Forces, arriving Adak, Alaska 18 September. John Hood joined Destroyer Squadron 57 (DesRon 57) of Rear Admiral John L. McCrea's Task Force 92 (TF 92) and served her entire war career in the stormy waters of the North Pacific. The principal offensive missions were to harass and threaten the enemy outposts in the Kuril Islands, more than 600 miles (1,100 km) westward of Attu. In carrying out this mission, the Task Force made nine sorties against the Kurils and five offensive sweeps in the Sea of Okhotsk, hampered by bad weather, and well beyond the range of friendly air cover. John Hood was the only ship of the task force which participated in every sortie from reporting through the end of the war.

In November she engaged in the bombardment of the Japanese base on Matsuwa, causing considerable damage to the installation. She continued sorties and patrol operations in the Kurils through the winter and spring of 1945. While patrolling in the Sea of Okhotsk 25 June 1945, John Hood encountered an enemy convoy attempting last minute reinforcements to the badly battered Japanese garrisons. The destroyer assisted in sinking one cargo ship and probable sinking of another. On 11 August her task group conducted one of the final naval operations of the war by destroying another enemy convoy.

Following the cessation of hostilities, she steamed to Adak to prepare for occupation duties. John Hood departed Adak 31 August with a large force headed for Northern Japan. The battle tested destroyer remained in Northern Japanese waters with the occupations forces until she turned homeward 18 November. She arrived Charleston, S.C., 22 December and remained there until she decommissioned 3 July 1946 and entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

1951 – 1964

John Hood recommissioned 3 August 1951. Following commissioning she received major modifications to enable her to assume a place in the modern fleet.

John Hood departed Norfolk 29 June for an around-world cruise, including peace-keeping patrols with the 7th Fleet off the coast of Korea. She returned to Norfolk 6 February 1954 for repairs and coastal training operations before sailing 5 November 1955 for Mediterranean duty with the 6th Fleet. Upon returning to Norfolk 26 February 1956, the destroyer received repairs to her storm-damaged mast and then trained midshipmen in the summer. During the tense Suez crisis in the fall she sailed with Task Force 26 to Lisbon to be ready for action if needed and returned to the Virginia Capes in December.

Following training exercises along the Atlantic coast, and another 6th Fleet cruise 1957 in the still turbulent Mideastern waters, John Hood commenced training cruises in early 1958. She operated with Fleet Sonar School and engaged in antisubmarine warfare (ASW) exercises before being transferred to the Reserve Destroyer Squadron at New York 1 October 1959. She continued training reservists until 1 August 1961, when President John F. Kennedy ordered a callup of reservists to bolster the nation's military strength during the Berlin crisis. The American answer to the Communist challenge prevented a major conflict; and, as the crisis subsided, John Hood resumed duties as a reserve training destroyer at New York in August 1962.

The warship decommissioned on 30 June 1964, remaining in reserve until stricken from the Navy List on 1 December 1974. She was sold for scrap to Luria Bros. & Co., Inc., Cleveland, Ohio, on 12 April 1976 and removed from Navy custody by the end of that month.

John Hood received one battle star for World War II service.

References

External links
       navsource.org: USS John Hood
 hazegray.org: USS John Hood

World War II destroyers of the United States
Cold War destroyers of the United States
Ships built in Chickasaw, Alabama
Korean War destroyers of the United States
1943 ships
Fletcher-class destroyers of the United States Navy

USS John Hood


The Polonaise-fantaisie in A-flat major, Op. 61, is a composition for piano by Frédéric Chopin. It was dedicated to Mme A. Veyret, written and published in 1846.

This work was slow to gain favour with musicians, due to its harmonic complexity and intricate form. Arthur Hedley was one of the first critics to speak positively of the work, writing in 1947 that it "works on the hearer's imagination with a power of suggestion equaled only by the F minor Fantasy or the fourth Ballade", although Arthur Rubinstein, Leff Pouishnoff, Claudio Arrau and Vladimir Horowitz had been including it in their programs some decades earlier.

It is intimately indebted to the polonaise for its metre, much of its rhythm, and some of its melodic character, but the fantaisie is the operative formal paradigm, and Chopin is said to have referred initially to the piece only as a Fantasy. Parallels with the Fantaisie in F minor include the work's overall tonality, A-flat, the key of its slower middle section, B major, and the motive of the descending fourth.

Jeffrey Kallberg has suggested that the Polonaise-Fantaisie represents a change in Chopin's style from 'late' to 'last'.  It is suggested that the formal ambiguities of the piece (particularly the unconventional and musically misleading transitions into and out of the lyrical inner section) are the most significant defining qualities of this 'last style', which only includes this and one other piece—the F minor Mazurka (Op. 68, No. 4), Chopin's last composition.

The piece plays a central role in Sandor Marai's novel Embers.

References

External links

Polonaises by Frédéric Chopin
1846 compositions
Chopin
Compositions in A-flat major
Polonaises

Polonaise-Fantaisie (Chopin)


Højskolesangbogen of the Danish adult Folk High Schools is a songbook established by Heinrich von Nutzhorn in 1894 and substantially revised into a 1922 standard edition.

Twelve of the songs were selected as part of the Danish Culture Canon and freshly recorded under the auspices of Det Kongelige Bibliotek in 2006 by soprano Signe Asmussen, tenor David Danholt and pianist Ulrich Stærk, released as Fra Højskolesangbogen on the government-funded Dacapo Records label.

References

Danish song books
1894 books

Højskolesangbogen


Naso brevirostris, also known as the short-nosed unicornfish, spotted unicornfish, brown unicornfish, lined unicornfish, longnose surgeonfish, palefin unicornfish, paletail unicornfish, shorthorned unicornfish or shortsnouted unicornfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Acanthuridae, the surgeonfishes, unicornfishes and tangs. It occurs in the Indian and western Pacific Oceans.

Taxonomy
Naso brevirostris was first formally described as Naseus brevirostris in 1829 by the French zoologist Georges Cuvier with its type locality not given but considered to be Indonesia. It is classified within the nominate subgenus of the genus Naso. The genus Naso is the only genus in the subfamily Nasinae in the family Acanthuridae.

Etymology
Naso brevirostris has a specific name which means "short nose". This is an allusion to the shorter snout when compared to the type species of Naso, N. fronticornis.

Description
Naso brevirostris has 6 spines and between 27 and 29 soft rays supporting the dorsal fin while the anal fin is supported by 2 spines and 27 to 29 soft rays. The depth of the body fits into its standard length between roughly 2 and 2.7 times. The snout is very short in length and is very steep, almost vertical. Subadults and adults have long, tapering bony protuberances in front of their eyes which may extend past one's mouth by as much as the length of the head, first appearing as a bump in individuals of around  total length. A pair of bony plates with a poorly developed keels are on each side of the caudal peduncle and the caudal fin varies from truncate to slightly rounded.

The overall colour is light blueish-grey to olive-brown, although there is a colour phase where the front quarter of the body is pale with a clear demarcation from the remainder of the body. The middle of the flanks are marked with thin, vertical dark grey lines that break up into small spots on the lower body. The head is marked with small dark spots or by a lattice of lines. The protuberance is marked with diagonal black lines, the membrane of the operculum is white, the lips have pale blue edges and the caudal fin is largely whitish. This species has a maximum published total length of .

Distribution and habitat
Naso brevirostris is widespread throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans, from the Red Sea south along the eastern coast of Africa as far as Durban in South Africa and eastward across the Indian Ocean into the Western Pacific Ocean, extending east to the Pitcairn Islands and the Hawaiian Islands, north to southern Japan and south to Australia. In Australia the distribution goes from Ningaloo Reef around the northern tropical coasts to the northern Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea as far south as Moreton Bay in Queensland, as well as in the region of Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea. In the eastern Pacific it is found around the Galápagos Islands. These fish live in lagoon and seaward reefs down to depths of .

Biology
Naso brevirostris forms spawning aggregations, pairing to spawn and the males have larger keels on the caudal peduncle than the females. The eggs hatch into pelagic larvae which may remain in the water column for up to 90 days and the adults attain sexual maturity at around . Adults feed mainly on gelatinous zooplankton, while juveniles mainly feed on benthic algae. The switch from grazing to preying on gelatinous zooplankton coincides with the development of the bony protuberance.

Fisheries
Naso brevirostris is caught for food using fish traps and spears, although there have been cases of ciguatera poisoning after eating this fish. It rarely appears in the aquarium trade. This species has a wide range and populations appear to be stable so the IUCN classify it as Least Concern.

Gallery

References

External links

Fish of Hawaii
Fish described in 1829
Taxa named by Georges Cuvier
brevirostris

Naso brevirostris