LEWIS DEFIES THE PRESIDENT, ALLOWS COAL MINE STRIKE; GERMANS CAPTURE KHARKOV (10/26/41)

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread

Deadline Passes – 2
Stoppage of Supplies will Slow Output of Steel within Ten Days – 3
The International Situation – 3
Donets Fort Falls – 4
Russians Battle New Nazi Drives – 4-5
Stalingrad Held New German Goal * – 6
Vichy Awaits News on Somaliland ‘War’ – 6
Major Sports Yesterday – 6
Women Get Report on Equal Rights – 7
Asks Strike Vote on a Phone Tie-Up – 7
Louis Sparring Partner Now a Yaphank Private – 7
Work is Resumed by Air Associates – 7
Labor Seen Losing Favor with Public – 8
Morgenthau Urges Thrift for Income Taxes; Says Public Fails to Envision Stiff Dues – 8
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the War – 9

The News of the Week in Review
Twenty News Questions – 10
New Turn May Be at Hand in the War at Sea – 11-12
Strategic Centers of Russia’s Industrial Strength (map) – 13
Key to the Federal Defense Organization (by W.H. Lawrence) – 14-16
Answers to Twenty News Questions – 16

The New York Times Magazine
Our Own Skytroops ** – 17-22

* Another new place-name. Better get out the atlas.

** Homer didn’t notice the off-page direction so there is no page 25 on which to continue. The article ends with “But the”. Make up your own ending or just look at the pictures.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/26.htm

October 26th, 1941

GERMANY: Tonight the RAF attacks Hamburg with 115 bombers.

YUGOSLAVIA: Belgrade: They seek him here in the ruined capital of Yugoslavia; they seek him out there in the rugged, mountainous countryside so ideal for guerrilla fighting; the Germans seek him everywhere and bring in more and more troops daily to search for this man whose name they do not know and his partisan bands who grow in numbers daily. Josip Broz, a former sergeant in the Austro-Hungarian army, became a dedicated communist while a prisoner of the Russians and spent years in Yugoslav prisons for his beliefs. While he organized his partisan bands from a luxury villa here - with an escape hatch behind the wash-basin - he used more than 20 aliases until he settled on “Tito”. Until today, Tito’s partisans have maintained a guarded alliance against the Germans with the Chetnik fighters who are led by an army colonel, Drazha Mihailovich. The two men met today soon after the Germans started killing 100 Yugoslavs for every German soldier killed. Tito wants a joint command, but Mihailovich is opposed to sharing leadership in this way.

NORTH AFRICA: Tobruk: The operation to relieve the Australian garrison with the British 70th Infantry Division; begun on 12 October, ends; at least one ship, the minelayer HMS LATONA, has been lost to Stuka dive-bombers.

CANADA: Corvette HMCS Sudbury arrived Halifax from builder Montreal, Province of Quebec. (Dave Shirlaw)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: During the battle against convoy HG-75, U-71 attacked an escort with a four-torpedo fan, but all missed. The escort fought back with depth charges, damaging the boat so severely that she was forced to return to base.

U-83 damaged AMC HMS Ariguani in Convoy HG-75. (Dave Shirlaw)

fascinating stuff about the unions today. you can see that Roosevelt made a deal with the devil, gave the unions greater power over business in return for ramping up war production. when the war ended, the power stayed, with the result the unions wrecked most of the private companies they had grabbed. run down the list of the steel companies, none of them currently make steel in the US that i can see.
unions also squandered huge public approval, down from 67% to the current day. Scott Walker !!

also, there is an interesting little note from Morgenthau about people not having enough money to pay taxes and needing to save. shortly after that i believe, the govt instituted “withholding” which opened the spigot on the current bloated government we now have. without withholding, the government would never have been able to grow to its current size.

just another example of how the powers that were required to win the war, once granted to government, were never retrieved to the people.

law of unintended consequences.

Some very interesting articles relating to industry today.

First, take a look at the map of the USSR. It begs the question whether Germany had a chance of defeating the USSR. They’ve come far into the Soviet Union, but logistically can’t go farther. Yet look how much farther they have to go to destroy Stalin’s industrial centers. I said they needed two years to campaign. Maybe they needed three; maybe it was impossible. I know David Glantz thinks it was.

The other industrial item is our own labor unrest, which other posters have commented on. The unrest revolves around the steel industry, and the supporting coal industry; the basic muscle of American (or any country’s) economic might in the 1940’s. Getting back to the USSR, Stalin isn’t faced with these problems.

Comparing the Soviet and American steel industries brings up another point regarding the efficiencies of a command economy vs. a market economy. In a market economy, a steel corporation must keep it’s costs down in order to be competitive, and even to survive. The command economy does not work that way, and will tolerate waste and inefficiency because there is no compelling reason to avoid waste and be efficient.

The example: Steel manufacturing. Where is American steel manufacturing? Mostly in Western Pennsylvania and the south shore of Lake Michigan (the article says Chicago, but we all know its really Gary, Indiana). Where is the bulk of Soviet steel making? The Soviet Pittsburgh is in Magnitogorsk, which the map shows as a major metallurgical center. “Magnitogorsk” in Russian means “magnetic mountain.” It was a deposit of iron ore so large that it created it’s own anomaly in earth’s magnetic field. So does it make sense that the USSR put all it’s steel mills there? Not really; one would then assume that the American steel industry would be located in Duluth, not Pittsburgh. Or that European steel would be made in Swedish ore fields, and not the Ruhr. In fact, in competitive western steel industries, the mills were located atop the coal fields. (Or in the case of Gary, near the coal fields but where the ore could be shipped by ore freighter after the coal is brought from southern Illinois by rail). The reason is that the steel-making process in use at the time used about two tons of coal to every ton of ore to make steel. In a competitive industry, a company that put a mill on top of the iron mine and shipped coal would get killed with higher transportation costs.

I would imagine that a similar disregard of efficiencies permeated the entire five-year plan Soviet economic system, and is why it ultimately failed.

Thanks for the lesson, perfessor henkster. That is both interesting and instructive.

The home front labor unrest will dominate the headlines for the next few weeks, at least. With a notable distraction within one week. We will probably be learning more about John L. Lewis and his influence on events. At this point I only know he was a controversial labor leader of some sort (guessing UMW) who caused mainevet's mother to be born in PA instead of WV. I recall years ago someone posted that he should have been deported. So he must be an immigrant.

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