Posted on 04/13/2014 6:20:53 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
You will remember that we are purging all our secret establishments of Communists because we know they owe no allegiance to us or to our cause and will always betray secrets to the Soviet, even while we are working together. The fact of the two Communists being on the French Committee requires extremely careful treatment of the question of imparting secret information to them.
Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring
Geeze, it’s easy to confuse this headline with the present.
Interesting...
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1944/apr44/13apr44.htm#
Soviets press forward in Crimea
Thursday, April 13, 1944 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... In the Crimea, the Soviet 4th Ukrainian Front and the Independent Coastal Army advance. Feodosia, Evpatoriya and Simferopol are all taken. The German and Romanian forces of 17th Army are fall back on Sevastopol in some disorder. To the west, forces of the 3rd Ukrainian Front capture Ovidiopol at the mouth of the Dnestr River.
In New Guinea... Australian forces capture Bogadjim.
Over Occupied France... American and British tactical air forces conduct numerous attacks on German coastal batteries in Normandy.
In Britain... The 5th Earl of Lonsdale, sportsman and donor of the “Lonsdale Belts” awarded to champion boxers, dies at age 87.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/13.htm
April 13th, 1944 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: General Dwight D Eisenhower formally assumes direction of air operations out of the UK at 0000 hours (though he began informal exercise of this authority in late March 2944). This assumption of authority gives Eisenhower direction over the Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AEAF) consisting of the RAF 2nd Tactical Air Force and the USAAF Ninth Air Force; RAF Bomber Command; and US Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF) consisting of the USAAF Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces (the Fifteenth Air Force retains some degree of independence) along with the US 1st Army Group, British 21 Army Group, and Allied Naval Forces. (Jack McKillop)
BELGIUM AND FRANCE: The Ninth Air Force dispatches 121 B-26s and 37 A-20s to attack a marshalling yard, coastal batteries, airfields and V-weapon sites at Namur, Chievres and Nieuport, Belgium; Le Havre, France; and along the northern coast of France in general; nearly 175 other aircraft abort missions mainly because of weather; and 48 P-47s also dive-bomb V-weapon sites. (Jack McKillop)
THE NETHERLANDS: During Eighth Air Force Mission 302, 4 B-17s drop 800,000 leaflets on Amsterdam, The Hague and Eindhoven at 2235-2252 hours without loss. (Jack McKillop)
GERMANY: The Eighth Air Force flies Mission 301: 626 bombers and 871 fighters are dispatched to hit targets in Germany; the bombers claim 22-13-34 Luftwaffe aircraft and the fighters claim 42-8-10 in the air and 35-0-21 on the ground; 38 bombers and 9 fighters are lost; the bombers also drop 5.2 million leaflets on Germany; this mission is flown in conjunction with a raid on Hungary by 500+ Fifteenth Air Force bombers.
- 154 B-17s hit the industrial area at Schweinfurt and 1 hits a target of opportunity; 14 B-17s are lost.
- 207 B-17s bomb aviation industry targets at Augsburg and 20 hit the city of Augsburg; 18 B-17s are lost.
- 93 B-24s hit Lechfeld Airfield; 60 bomb aviation industry targets at Oberpfaffenhofen; 29 hit Lauffern and 2 hit targets of opportunity; 6 B-24s are lost.
Escort is provided by 134 P-38s, 504 Eighth and Ninth Air Force P-47 Thunderbolts and 233 Eighth and Ninth Air Force P-51s; 3 P-38s, 2 P-47s and 4 P-51s are lost. (Jack McKillop)
SWEDEN: Stockholm: Britain and American demand that Sweden stop exporting ball bearings to Germany.
HUNGARY: 535 Fifteenth Air Force heavy bombers (largest bomber mission to date) bomb targets in Hungary; 163 B-17s bomb an aircraft plant and depot at Gyor while 324 B-24s bomb an aircraft factory at Budapest and air depots at Budapest, Tokol and Vecses; fighter opposition and AA account for 14 US bombers and 1 fighter shot down; 40 enemy fighters are claimed shot down and 120+ aircraft destroyed on the ground.
The Hungarian fighters include sixteen Hungarian-made Me-210Cs, but these failed to shoot down any American aircraft, but lost several of their number including at least one to Hungarian anti-aircraft fire, which knocked out one of its engines.
Casualties amount to 1,073 killed and about 500 injured, prompting a mass evacuation of 100,000 people from the city (mostly children, elderly and pregnant women). (Jack McKillop and Mike Yaklich)
U.S.S.R.: The Red Army captures Simferopol.
ITALY: Twelfth Air Force B-25s attack Terni and a bridge at Marsciano while B-26s bomb Ancona marshalling yard and a nearby railroad bridge; fighter-bombers again strike mainly at communications, the town of Itri, Cesano station, a factory at Fontana Liri, a railroad overpass at Fara in Sabina, Anguillara, and bridges, trucks and other targets at points throughout central Italy. (Jack McKillop)
CHINA: 28 Fourteenth Air Force fighters attempt to intercept but fail to make contact with 13 Japanese airplanes which bomb Namyung, China. (Jack McKillop)
BURMA: 90+ Tenth Air Force P-40s, P-51 Mustangs and A-36 Apaches and a few B-25s carry out ground support missions near Kamaing and hit assorted targets throughout the Mogaung Valley; 12 B-25s and 11 P-51s support ground forces at Mawlu. (Jack McKillop)
JAPAN: 3 Eleventh Air Force B-24s fly armed reconnaissance and bombing runs over the airfield on Matsuwa Island and installations on Onnekotan Island in the Kurile Islands. (Jack McKillop)
NEW GUINEA: Australian troops retake Bogodijm.
80+ Fifth Air Force B-24s and A-20s pound the airfields at Dagua and But on the north coast of New Guinea; 33 A-20s hit Aitape; P-39Airacobras, B-25s, and B-24s fly light strikes against a variety of targets along Hansa Bay, on Wakde Island, at Uligan, and several other points along the coast. (Jack McKillop)
CAROLINE ISLANDS: There are two attacks on targets in Truk Atoll. During the early morning 23 Thirteenth Air Force B-24s bomb and later in the day, Seventh Air Force B-24s from Eniwetok Atoll attack. (Jack McKillop)
MARSHALL ISLANDS: Seventh Air Force B-25s from Tarawa Atoll bomb Jaluit Atoll, rearm at Majuro Atoll and hit Maloelap Atoll. (Jack McKillop)
PACIFIC OCEAN: Submarine USS Harder (SS-257) sinks Japanese destroyer HIJMS Ikazuchi 180 miles (290 km) south-southwest of Guam. (Jack McKillop)
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: Thirteenth Air Force aircraft attack targets on New Britain Island. 24 B-25s bomb the Talili Bay and Ratawul supply areas and the town of Rabaul; 40+ fighter-bombers strike the Malaguna area northwest of Rabaul; 17 fighter-bombers hit personnel and supply areas at Mosigetta, Mawareka, Meive, and Maririei. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: The motion picture “The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress” opens in Hollywood, California. Directed by William Wyler, this film documents the 25th and final mission of the crew of the Eighth Air Force’s B-17F-10-BO “Memphis Belle.” (Jack McKillop)
Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring
Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring
Pretty funny.
The Russians have never “freed” anything — in all their years of history.
Are there ant books or web sites that detail the Soviet’s logistic efforts in their great drive to the west? With out our supplies I don’t think they could have kept up such a sustained effort.
Not much available in the West. What does exist is in the official Russian/Soviet histories, and therefore dry, inaccurate and in Cyrillic script. The closest you will get in the West is from David Glantz. By the way Glantz does have a very good book about the current Soviet operations in Romania “Red Storm Over the Balkans.” Glantz believes the Soviets were trying extend their offensive by striking deep into Romania, but were stymied by strong German defenses.
As far as the Soviet logistic efforts, American and Canadian trucks are a big part of the current operations. All of those Studebaker 6x6 trucks making the one way trip up through Iran are winding up at the front, and the Soviet soldiers love them. They are the only things that can keep up with the T34s in the mud.
The Sov’s are still being dishonest about the escape of Hube’s First Panzer Army from its pocket.
This is the point of Soviet offensives where they start getting dishonest, both in the press releases and in their official histories. David Glantz has made a nice career going through the archives and finding examples of failed Soviet offensives that got ignored by the official history.
We are seeing one now, where the offensive in southern Ukraine to the border of Romania is running out of gas. The Stavka is issuing orders to Konev and Malinovski to force the Dniester and drive deep into Romania, but both Fronts are spent. The tank armies have only a handful of tanks left in operating condition, and they’ve outrun the supplies. The Germans have brought up several panzer divisions, which while weak, are in better shape than the Soviet forces.
Glantz has a good book on the operations we are reading about now, “Red Storm Over the Balkans.” He notes that the Stavka would always push an offensive past it’s limits, and give the Germans an opportunity for a riposte, just like on the Donetz a year ago and at Zhitomir last November. But the Stavka is willing to make the push because the Wehrmacht’s ripostes are becoming ever more feeble.
We will see this again in battles over the Vistula bridgeheads, Army Group North will hack an escape corridor through Latvia to Courland, and finally there will be an aborted invasion of East Prussia in October. The last such offensive will be “Sonnenwende” around Stargard in Pomerania in February 1945. It will gain little ground, but disturb the Stavka enough that they don’t drive on Berlin immediately but instead take the time to clear Pomerania and Silesia first.
I would also add that Romania has some good terrain for the defense, unlike mostly billiard table flat Ukraine.
Mixed reviews on the Romanian terrain favoring the defense. The Germans have stopped the Soviets on natural defensive lines of the Dniester and the ridge lines around Targul-Frumos. The ridge lines generally run northwest to southeast which favors the Germans. And those ridges are quite substantial (think Tennessee or southern Kentucky). But the problem is that the ridges channel the road and rail lines in the same direction. If (when) the Germans need to make retrograde movements to fall back to the southwest, they won’t be able to. The terrain that protects can also be a trap.
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