Posted on 07/06/2011 6:05:29 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
Soviet Claims Gain – 2-3
The International Situation – 3
Invaders Press On – 4-5
Col. Donovan, Who Studied Nazi Espionage, is Slated for Big Post, Capital Reports – 5
Armored Forces Test Their Power – 6-7
U.S. Tank Troops in Training for War Games (photos) – 6
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the Fighting in Various War Zones – 8-10
Would Speed Bases on Aleutian Islands – 9
The News of the Week in Review
A Crucial Week in the Twenty-Third Month of War (map) – 11
Twenty News Questions – 12
Tactics of Blitzkrieg Shown on Vast Canvas – 13
Long-War Preparation Shaped at Washington – 14
Answers to Twenty News Questions – 15
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/jul41/f06jul41.htm
Romanians welcomed in conquered land
Sunday, July 6, 1941 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... Romanian forces take Chernovtsy and are welcomed by the civilian population on entering the city. The Soviets claim to have carried out successful counterattacks in Latvia and in Belorussia.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/06.htm
July 6th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: London has its sunniest day this century, 15 hours and 48 minutes of sunshine.
SYRIA: Lt Arthur Roden Cutler (b. 1916), Australian Military Forces, carried out several outstanding exploits from 19 June - 6 July, before losing a leg. (VC)
U.S.S.R.: Romanian troops occupy Chernovsky and are welcomed by the local population.
Kovno: Lithuanian militiamen, on German orders, kill 2,514 Jews.
Soviet submarine Shch-206 of the Black Sea Fleet is mined and sunk off either Shabler Cape or Sulina. (Mike Yared)(146 and 147)
FINLAND: The Finns decide to re-occupy the island of Morgonland and a lone lieutenant, Fred Luther, is landed for a two-day reconnaissance. (Cris Wetton)
While waiting for the main attack by Lt. Gen. Heinrichs’s Karelian Army to begin, Col. Heiskanen’s 11th Div. (VI Corps) attacks near Vartsile to gain better starting positions for the coming main attack. (Mikko Härmeinen)
SOUTH AMERICA: A border dispute between Peru and Ecuador flares up into war.
GREENLAND: Transports USS Munargo (AP-20) and USAT Cheaeau Thierry arrive at Tungugdliarfik Fjord, Greenland, to begin construction of an air base at Narsarssuak; this was designated Bluie West One (BW-1). Bluie was the code name for Greenland and “W-1” indicated that this was the first base constructed on the west coast of Greenland; bases on the east coast were designated BE-numeric. Also debarking from the freighter SS Siboney were a small cadre of Army Airways Communications System (AACS) personnel. AACS had been tasked with supporting the Air Corps Ferrying Command’s flights across the North Atlantic by providing communications services to disseminate weather information and navigational aids. AACS detachments had already established sites at Gander, Newfoundland, in March 1941 and Goose Bay, Labrador; BW-1 went on the air on 21 August. By November 1941, AACS had established stations as far east as Reykjavik, Iceland. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: The New York Yankees baseball team plays a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics before 60,948 fans in Yankee Stadium in New York City. Before the game, a plaque of Lou Gehrig, who died on 2 June, is added to Monument Park in center field. In the first game, Yankee center fielder Joe DiMaggio goes 4-for-5 against A’s pitchers Johnny Babich and Bump Hadley. In the second game, DiMaggio goes 2-for-4 against Jack Knott. DiMaggio’s hitting streak now stands at 48 consecutive games. (Jack McKillop)
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Camrose arrived Halifax from builder Sorel, Province of Quebec.
Destroyer HMCS Hamilton (ex HMS Hamilton ex HMS Kalk ex USS Kalk) commissioned.
Minesweeper HMCS MELVILLE is launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
I am curious about the pictured Major General Bruce Magruder, commanding the First Armored Division. George Patton was then commanding the Second Armored Division. I have never heard of Gen. Magruder before. Quick searches show:
“”Bruce Magruder, Major-General (1882–1953)
1937 - 1940 Executive Officer Infantry School
1940 - March 1942 Commanding General 1st Armored Division
1942 - 1946 Commandant Infantry Replacement Training Center, Camp Wolters, Mineral Springs, Texas
1946 Retired””
It looks as though he was not successful at tank command and was sent to Texas to train infantry for the rest of the war.
All I know about Bruce MacGruder was that he was responsible for the 1st Armored nickname “Old Ironsides”. He was replaced by Orlando Ward who would in turn be relieved by Patton due to Patton’s dissatisfaction with Ward’s lack of aggression and replaced by Harmon if I remember correctly.
At 60, he may have been too old for a field command, but still had useful leadership skills.
Part of Ward’s problem was serving under Fredenhall. It was Fredenhall’s interference in the chain of command that led to 1st Armored being spread out over the southern half of Tunisia in combat commands, instead of being concentrated for the Battle of Kasserine Pass.. The two men did not get along, and Ward probably loathed the Corps commander.
He failed, however, to forcefully question, or resist Fredenhall’s interference, and that passivity hurt him with Patton, but didn’t destroy his career. If I recall, Ward returned to combat, commanding at least a division in France after D-Day.
Fredendall was one of those men that was in Marshall’s little black book, but didn’t pan out as Marshall would hope. We will find soon that General Short is that way as well. Fortunately, many of those in Marshall’s black book were good picks.
As for Ward’s relief, I would attribute it more to the confusing and contradicting orders by British General Alexander, than I would to Fredendall (though Fredendall was truly incompetent). I think this is what caused the impression with Patton that Ward was being “too hesitant” when he stopped his forces in the town of Maknassy letting the Germans fortify the pass outside of the town. Ward went back to the states and was Chief of Artillery before eventually returning to Europe again, I believe with another armored division (I’d have to look that up though).
From George Orwell’s Diary: 6 July, 1941:
Several of the papers are growing very restive because we are not doing more to help the U.S.S.R.
I do not know whether any action, other than air-raids, is really intended, but if nothing is attempted, quite apart from the military and political consequences this may have, it is a disquieting symptom.
For if we can’t make a land offensive now, when the Germans have 150 divisions busy in Russia, when the devil shall we be able to? I hear no rumours whatever about movements of troops, so apparently no expedition is being prepared at any rate from England.
1- The only new development is the beginning of Beaverbrook’s big drive for tanks, similar to his drive for planes last year. But this can’t bear fruit for some months, and where these tanks are to be used there is no hint. I can’t believe they want them for use against a German invasion. If the Germans were in a position to bring large numbers of armoured units here, i.e. if they had complete command of the sea and air, we should have lost the war already.
No talk of any formal alliance with Russia, nor indeed anything clarifying our relationship, in spite of more or less friendly utterances on either side. We can’t, of course, take any big risk until it is certain that they are in firm alliance with us, i.e. will go on fighting even if they have succeeded in beating back the invasion.
No reliable news from the fronts. The Germans are across the Pruth, but it seems to be disputed whether they are across the Beresina. The destruction claimed by both sides is obviously untruthful. The Russians claim that German casualties are already 700,000, i.e. about 10 per cent of Hitler’s whole army.
Examined a number of Catholic papers, also several copies of Truth, (2) to see what their attitude is to our quasi-alliance with the U.S.S.R. The Catholic papers have not gone pro-Nazi, and perhaps will not do so. The “line” apparently is that Russia is objectively on our side and must be supported, but that there must be no definite alliance.
Truth, which hates Churchill, takes much the same line but is a shade more anti-Russian, perhaps. Some of the Irish Catholic papers have now gone frankly pro-Nazi, it appears. If that is so there will have been similar repercussions in the U.S.A.
It will be interesting to see whether the “neutrality” that has been imposed on the Irish press, forbidding it to make any comment on any belligerent, will be enforced in the case of Russia, now that Russia is in the war.
The People’s Convention have voted full support for the government and demand “vigorous prosecution of the war” – this only a fortnight after they were demanding a “people’s peace”. The story is going round that when the news of Hitler’s invasion of Russia reached a New York cafe where some Communists were talking, one of them who had gone out to the lavatory returned to find that the “party line” had changed in his absence.
[1] From the moment the Soviet Union entered the war on the same side as Britain there was constant agitation for the opening of a second front. Much of this was promoted by Communists and Communist sympathisers.
[2] A journal of the extreme right. Peter Davison
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