Posted on 09/08/2011 5:08:18 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/sep41/f08sep41.htm
Finns cut rail link to Murmansk
Monday, September 8, 1941 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... Continuing Finnish attacks against the Soviets in the area between Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega cut the railway track south from Murmansk, the northern port vital for supplies to the USSR.
In the Mediterranean... 69 more British Hurricane fighters are flown to Malta with the help of British navy’s Force H using the Ark Royal and the Furious.
In Norway... British RAF Flying Fortress bombers attack the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer in Oslo Fiord.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/08.htm
September 8th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: Hatfield, Hertfordshire: The first prototype de Havilland Mosquito IV Bomber variant (W 4072) makes its maiden flight. The new bomber has a level speed of 400 mph and fighter-agility. (22)
Destroyer HMS Saumarez is laid down. Submarine HMS Trespasser is laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
FRANCE: Paris: The German authorities arrest 120 leaders of the city’s Jewish community as hostages for the murder last week of a German officer.
GERMANY: RAF bombers inflicted heavy damage on Berlin last night in the heaviest raid yet on the German capital.
U.S.S.R.: Continuing Finnish attacks between Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega advance across the Svir and capture Lodenoye Pole. This cuts the railway line from Murmansk to Leningrad. Arkangel is still available to use now, but the winter ice will close this. Due to the lack of soviet ability to break the ice, this winter, a new railway from Murmansk will become necessary.
Leningrad: The city of Leningrad is now completely encircled by German and Finnish troops. The Germans reached Schlusselburg on Lake Ladoga. The Finns cutting the Stalin canal, completes the encirclement. Field Marshal von Leeb’s Panzers are within ten miles of the city, which is being pounded by long-range artillery and the Luftwaffe. More than 6,000 incendiaries have been dropped today and in a terrible blow for the defenders, the huge Badayev food warehouse has been destrpyed along with hundreds of tons of irreplaceable supplies.
The Russians are heavily out-numbered in the air, but their pilots are fighting ferociously against the swarms of Stukas which are attacking the heavy Russian ships in the harbours of Kronstadt and Leningrad. They are carrying specially-developed 2,000 pound bombds; their particular targets are the battleships MARAT and OCTOBER REVOLUTION, whose 12-inch guns are pounding the German rear echelons.
The land attack on the city is being mounted by 1st Panzer Division thrusting along the left bank of the Neva and the 6th Panzer Division following the Moscow-Leningrad railway line. It is not going to be a walkover for them. They have been held up for three weeks by suicidal Russian counter-attacks. Their men and machines are worn out by fighting both the Russians and the mud caused by incessant rain. If they had made their assault a month ago they would be in the Romanov’s palaces today. Instead, they are caught up in hastily-built defences manned by Opolchenye - militia units armed with rifles, Molotov cocktails and grenades. This is not the sort of fighting the Panzers enjoy. In fact, von Leeb’s attempt to capture the city may not last. Hitler wants to switch his tanks to the forthcoming attack on Moscow, leaving Leningrad to “wither on the vine”.
He would rather subject the city to a long siege by gun and bomber and so relieve the German army of the necessity of feeding the population during the winter. Von Leeb however, can almost taste the glory of capturing the old Tsarist capital and will carry on his assault until told to stop.
The ethnic German community on the Volga region (about 600,000 people) is exiled to Siberia because of Kremlin fears that it might become a fifth column of Nazi sympathizers.
LITHUANIA: The entire Jewish community of Meretsch is exterminated. (Jack McKillop)
FRENCH INDOCHINA: Ho Chi Minh forms the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh). (Jack McKillop)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Nine B-17’s of the 14th Bombardment Squadron arrive at Clark AAF. (Marc James Small)
U.S.A.: Destroyer USS Hobson is launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
Epic battles in the east.
I was doing a little research about the battles in August and found some, like Konev’s counter-offensive, have barely been written about because so little info is available in both German and Russian records, so far.
"Leningrad encircled by Army Group North. The 900-day siege begins."
The MARAT will be sunk by Hans-Ulrich Rudel.
Larry381 posted a great excerpt from an autobiographical account of that engagement a few days ago. I think within the last week.
The Eleventh Army! That meant the southern end of the front—the extreme right wing of Army Group South.
A few hours previously the Army commander, Ritter von Schobert, had attempted a forced landing in his Fieseler Storch aircraft and had come down in the middle of a Russian minefield. Pilot and general had been blown to pieces.
Manstein received his appointment with mixed feelings. An Army command, of course, was the crowning achievement of an officer's career—but an Army command also meant giving up the personal, active direction of troops in the field. Manstein was, with all his heart, a commander in the field. Yet, both as chief of staff of Rundstedt's Army Group A and later as the general commanding XXXVIII Army Corps, he had proved himself an outstanding strategist. Indeed, the pattern of the campaign against France had been Manstein's work.
In spite of all the regret at leaving LVI Panzer Corps—the Corps he had led right up to the gates of Leningrad, the Corps with which he had overcome dangerous crises, smashed Soviet armies, and frequently borne the brunt of the campaign of Army Group North—one consideration made his departure easier for him.
Because he was a gifted strategist Manstein realized the mistakes made by the High Command in the north and at the centre, and had long been unhappy about the tug-of-war between Hitler and the Army High Command on the issue of the great strategic objectives.
Only that morning, on 12th September, after recording his Corps' successes in the fighting against a vastly superior Soviet force south of Lake Ilmen, he had written in his diary: "In spite of everything I lack a sense of real satisfaction at these successes."
On the southern front, about the middle of September, Field-Marshal von Rundstedt was on the point of concluding the battle of the Kiev pocket, after an initially slow and laborious operation. Together with Guderian's Panzer Group, Rundstedt's forces destroyed the bulk of the Soviet southern armies in the Ukraine.
The Eleventh Army, mounting its offensive from Rumania, had taken no part in the battle of Kiev. Together with two Rumanian armies it was to recapture Bessarabia, which the Soviets had forced the Rumanians to surrender to them in 1940. Its re-annexation was Hitler's reward for Rumania's participation in the Eastern campaign. Following the liberation of Bessarabia, Eleventh Army was to advance to the lower reaches of the Dnieper, a huge river which ran as a colossal obstacle through the zones of operations of both Army Groups. The forcing of the Dnieper crossings marked the beginning of a dual strategic task. In the words of the order:
Eleventh Army will capture the Crimean Peninsula with some of its forces, and with the bulk of its forces will drive towards Rostov along the northern edge of the Sea of Azov
.
Undoubtedly the Crimea and Rostov were both highly important strategic objectives. Rostov-on-Don with its four major railway-lines and countless road intersections towards east, west, north, and south was the gateway to the Caucasus. And whoever controlled the Crimea would control the Black Sea and could exert political pressure on neighbour countries— Turkey and Persia, for instance. Turkey, in particular, was very much in Hitler's mind. He was extremely anxious to have that country on his side, for that would mean the forging of a bridge to the Mediterranean and to the fabulously rich oilfields of the Arab world. Rommel's armies in Africa and the armies in the East might link up.
Might!
The plan to seize the Crimea was, moreover, motivated by considerations of economic warfare. The peninsula was a dangerous Soviet airbase for attacks on the Rumanian oilfields of Ploesti—a permanent source of anxiety to Hitler.
By seizing the Crimea and Rostov, Eleventh Army was therefore to provide the basis for Rundstedt's conquest of the "Soviet Ruhr," the Donets basin. Stalingrad on the Volga and Astrakhan on the Caspian were the more distant objectives in Hitler's mind. In fact, they were laid down in the explanatory notes to Operation Barbarossa, and, as the A-A line, figured in the detailed schedule of war aims. The A-A line meant Astrakhan-Archangel, a gigantic line right across the Soviet Union, from the Arctic Ocean along the Northern Dvina and the Volga—a distance of roughly 1250 miles. It was Hitler's finish-line for his operation against Stalin's empire. From this line armed patrols based on big frontier fortifications on the Volga and Northern Dvina were to contain the Soviet forces and their bases on both sides of the Urals.
Only a map in hand can fully convey the fantastic objectives pursued by the highest leaders of Germany. Yet the objectives mapped out even for Eleventh Army involved tasks which were bound to lead to a dissipation of its forces. Manstein, the cool, sober strategist, realized at once that too much was being demanded of Eleventh Army.
Even though he was taking over an excellent force he knew that the best and most self-sacrificing divisions could not be expected to do things which were far beyond their capacities. Eleventh Army had often proved its striking power. But one of its most remarkable feats was the crossing of the Dnieper at Berislav by the 22nd Infantry Division from Lower Saxony. This classical instance of a major river crossing deserves a more detailed account—if only because it represents a glorious achievement by the sappers, so often the poor relations of military history. Unlike the armored forces and mobile divisions, the sappers never bask in the limelight of victory, but perform their indispensable duties in the shadow of battle.
Nothing demonstrates the drama of that vital crossing of the Lower Dnieper more clearly than a factual account of this operation.
Tomorrow: Through the Nogay Steppe
Hitler Moves East 1941-1943 by Paul Carell
there is no limit to churchills micro management. reminds me of rumsfelds “snwoflakes”.
Interesting that nobody at the Times blanched at using the word “hillbilly” in 1941.
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