Posted on 09/01/2011 4:44:16 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
Red Army Attacks – 2
Red Army Drive in Center Gains – 2-3
Fighting Back Against Nazi Hordes on the Eastern Front (photos) – 3 & 5
The International Situation – 4
Hitler Spends War Anniversary at Front; Camouflage Hides Headquarters from Air – 4
Berlin Voices Hope in Third War Year – 4-5
Dr. Butler Sees U.S. as World Leader – 5-6
Plan Big Program of Teaching Aliens – 6
Inspecting the Work of American Army Engineers (photo) – 6
Spain to Aid Repatriation by Taxing All who Leave – 6
British Air Patrol Plays Falcon to U-Boat Hawks in the Atlantic – 7-8
New Battleship Most Habitable – 8
Europe Did All Right before 1492, Nazi Warns – 8
Vichy Sees Increase in Winter Hardships – 8
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the War – 9
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/sep41/f01sep41.htm
Leningrad in sights of artillery
Monday, September 1, 1941 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... Advancing Germany armies are within artillery range of the city of Leningrad. To the east of the city, their attacks are nearing the shores of Lake Lagoda.
From Washington... the US Atlantic Fleet announces the formation of a Denmark Strait Patrol. Two heavy cruisers and four destroyers are allocated for to the force. The US Navy is now permitted to escort convoys in the Atlantic containing American merchant vessels.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/01.htm
September 1st, 1941
FRANCE: An Air France Bloch 220, msn 12, registered F-AQNL, crashes into a lake after an engine failed on takeoff at Bollemont. Only 2 of the 17 aboard survive.
GERMANY: Berlin: All Jews over the age of six are ordered to wear, from 19 September, a yellow star of David with the word Jude [Jew] written on it.
FINLAND: Yesterday Finnish troops encircled two Soviet divisions (43rd and 115th) in Porlammi - Ylä-Somme area south of Viipuri in the Karelian Isthmus. Today the Soviet units caught in the encirclement begin to surrender, although many men are able to break out, leaving their equipment behind. Finns capture a large amount of booty (including 306 artillery pieces, 246 mortars and 55 tanks) together with some 9000 POWs, among them commander of the 43rd Division, Major-General Kirpitshnikov. More than 7000 dead Red Army soldiers are buried in the field, but some 12 000 succeeded breaking out before the surrender. (Mikko Härmeinen)
LITHUANIA: Karl Jäger, commander of an SS Eisatzgruppe operating around Vilnius reports that day they killed “1,404 Jewish children, 1,763 Jews, 1,812 Jewesses, 109 mentally sick people, one German woman who was married to a Jew, and one Russian woman.”
Jäger notes the essential help of local Lithuanians and says that 4,000 Jews were liquidated by pogroms and executions at the hands of Lithuanian partisans.
U.S.S.R.: German forces are now within artillery range of Leningrad. East of the city their advance nears the south edge of Lake Ladoga.
Marshal Timoshenko leads a counter-attack at Gomel.
Vladivostok: A Russian mine sinks a Japanese fishing boat.
Soviet submarine SC-135 commissioned.
CHINA: In Shanghai, the US Consul General, the Commander of the USN’s Yangtze Patrol and the Commanding Officer of the 4th Marine Regiment, recommend that all US naval forces in China, i.e., river gunboats and US Marines, be withdrawn.
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: First 12 Filipino infantry regiments are inducted into Federal service.
CANADA: Corvettes HMCS Kenogami and Orillia departed St. John’s with Convoy SC-42. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: Marshall assesses Hawaii as adequately defended and wishes all additional men and materiel sent to the Philippines.
The First issue of Intelligence Bulletin is published. (Bill Howard)
First production order for 150 Northrop P-61 night fighters is placed. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The US Navy forms a Denmark Strait patrol with units of the ATLANTIC Fleet with 2 heavy cruisers and four destroyers. US escorts are now allowed to convoy ships of any flag provided there is at least one ship with a US flag.
The USN assumes responsibility for escorting convoys from a point off Argentia, Newfoundland to Iceland.
Thanks for the map! Time is inching closer....
The NAZI’s thought Europe did all right before 1492?
And for today:
"Janówska, a labor and extermination camp near Lvov in Ukraine opens.
"The Germans open an exposition in Paris called “The Jew and France.”
Visitors see sculptures and paintings of hideous mythical Jews, Jews allegedly cursed to wander the world forever because of their supposed attack on Jesus Christ, and Jews allegedly out to control the world.
Other exhibits portray the Jew as a repulsive monster destroying France. In the first few days, more than 100,000 Parisians visit the exhibit.
"Romanians and Germans force nearly 150,000 Jews into death marches to internment camps in Bessarabia, Ukraine.
Many die of beatings, random shootings, fatigue, hunger, thirst, exposure, and disease.
"A nine-block section of Auschwitz is turned into a camp for Soviet POWs.
"Chemists and mechanics at the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) Criminal Technical Institute develop an execution van with engine exhaust directed to the sealed rear-cargo area.
September 1
"All Jews age six and older in Slovakia, Bohemia, and Moravia are ordered to wear Yellow Stars, effective September 19, and to suspend all business activity.
"Ukrainian nationalist Ulas Samchuk, editor of the newspaper Volhyn, writes that Jews and Poles “must disappear completely from our cities.”
"Because of Christian-German protests, Hitler suspends the “euthanasia” program.
The program will continue unofficially, however."
"Lieut Gen. Ben Lear, commander of the Second Army now engaged in maneuvers in southwest Arkansas, goes over a pontoon bridge under construction by the 108th Engineers of the Thirty-third Division."
The Thirty-third was my Dad's division.
He wore its patch on the right sholder of his uniform for the rest of his career.
By the way, can anyone imagine today's politically correct Army allowing such a unit patch?
My dad was very proud of it, and humbled by its signifigance.
He always said, after they landed in Japan, they got along very well with the Japanese.
Perhaps the symbolism was not entirely lost on them.
"Tars Like North Carolina for Food, Books, Tax-Free Cigarettes and Other ComfortsBy Hanson W. Baldwin
"...The addition of the North Carolina...and her sister ship the Washington to the United States Fleet gives this nation more battle ships in commission than any other power.
"The North Carolina and Washington are ships of far greater fighting power than..."
No doubt, all those new battleships will make the difference between victory and defeat. ;-)
There still will be some notable battleship exchanges in the war even though carriers will have made them essentially obsolete.
My personal favorite is when Admiral Kondo on the battleship Kirishima along with four cruisers engage the Washington and South Dakota in a nighttime battle.
The South Dakota will knock out its own firing system with the concussion of its first salvo turning it into essentially a target ship for the Japanese. While the South Dakota is taking around 42 large caliber hits from the Japanese ships, the Washington uses radar to lock onto the Kirishima and hits her with 9 16-inch rounds and 40 5-inch rounds in 7 minutes sinking her. The South Dakota despite becoming a pin cushion still sailed under full steam to port for repairs.
They will at Guadalcanal.
Indeed battleships like the USS Missouri had some of the longest active service lifes of any US warships ever.
So they were obviously still useful during WWII.
But what if we put the question this way: suppose, for sake of discussion, that North Carolina and Washington (the Navy's two newest battleships) had been ready for service at Pearl Harbor in 1941, and had been bombed and sunk there, but US aircraft carriers still escaped unharmed.
How many weeks, months or years would the war have been lengthened (ignoring A-bomb effects) for lack of those battleships?
My guess is, nowhere near the time added had the Japanese caught & destroyed the two US aircraft carriers in Pearl Harbor.
Best they did this week was another shot down the front of a girl’s swimsuit. The men’s underwear ad seemed to show a couple of guys who were ‘happy’ about their relationship.
U.S carrier operations were severely circumscribed in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor by the lack of fast battleship escorts [unlike the Japanese]. The U.S had repaired at least several of the battleships sunk or damaged at Pearl fairly rapidly, but Nimitz wouldn’t take them. Too slow, and fuel guzzlers to boot. So to turn the question, how much shorter could the war have been if the new battleships were ready for duty in december, 1941.
And I forgot, in my earlier post, the role of the battle lin against the southern thrust of the Japanese Leyte operation.
I can’t wait to learn how it all ends!
Understanding that carriers take a lot of escort ships to help protect them, are we certain that battleships are the best escorts a carrier can have?
I would have said fast cruisers, with lots and lots of anti-aircraft guns, or even large destroyers with radar to serve as pickets many miles away from the carriers.
But, maybe I'm missing something?
So let's consider the Battle of Coral Sea, where both US fleet carriers were lost (Lexington) or damaged (Yorktown).
The Japanese lost the light carrier Shoho, with fleet carrier Shokoku heavily damaged.
Their third carrier, Zuikaku was not damaged.
Would adding a battleship or two to the US force have reduced American loses, or increased the number of Japanese ships sunk?
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