Posted on 02/17/2010 5:04:25 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend
(To be continued.)
* See reply #3 for back story.
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/feb40/f17feb40.htm
British plan to evacuate children
Saturday, February 17, 1940 www.onwar.com
Young mother sends her children out of LondonIn Britain... The government plans to evacuate 400,000 children from the larger cities to rural areas.
In Germany... General Manstein visits Hitler and discusses with him the plan for the armored attack through the Ardennes which Manstein has devised. Hitler has been thinking along these lines himself and is very impressed with Manstein’s work.
In Oslo... Strong British, Norwegian and German protest notes are exchanged over the Altmark incident.
The Winter War... The Soviet advance has completely cleared the Mannerheim Line. All the Finnish defenders are now established in their second line of defense. The Finnish 23rd Division, brought forward from the reserve, has been slow to arrive because of air attacks. The Red Army has assembled 35 divisions (organized under General Semyon Timoshenko) and the Finns, with 15 depleted divisions, are now on the defensive.
From Washington... President Roosevelt sends Sumner Welles, Under-Secretary of State, on a “fact-finding” tour of Europe and appoints Myron C. Taylor as his “personal representative” to the Vatican.
In the United States... United States Lines sells the liner President Harding and seven cargo ships to a Belgian concern in an attempt to circumvent the ban on US sea borne trade with Europe, imposed by the Neutrality Act.
Something here to jolt everyone back to reality...
http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1940&_f=md055505
MY DAY - Eleanor Roosevelt
FEBRUARY 17, 1940
WASHINGTON, Friday—The day at Cornell University yesterday was much the same as it always is. We spent the morning discussing the various new developments in the College of Home Economics. Miss Rose made a statement which was interesting and very true. She says that her girls have a sense of security brought about by the fact that they learn how to handle their own lives and know they have acquired real knowledge in some special field of home economics work, which will enable them to earn a living.
The one thing that stands out in these girls is that they look strong and healthy, as though they have learned something in the course of their study about the basic rules of health and have applied it to their own lives. It seems to me that much beauty is dependent on health. If a girl has to surmount some physical handicap or ill health, it requires even greater effort and control of the mind and spirit.
Some of the girls inquired of me how I felt they could supplement their course in home economics to make it prepare them better to appreciate a greater variety of subjects. This shows a realization that we all need many windows in order to obtain satisfactions from as many points as possible. Difficult as it is for a girl to concentrate on one course and still take others on the side, I think that whatever speciality she works on, she should try to broaden her viewpoint so as to obtain more and more enjoyment out of the world in which she lives.
They had quite a remarkable book fair here this year and I was sorry I did not see it. They told me of one book which traced the development of the language in Dutchess County, New York, and gave many of the old Dutch words. These words have always intrigued me and I have always wanted to know their meanings, so I must find this book and devote some leisure time to it in the summer.
Before going to the Master Farmers’ Dinner, we stopped at the university radio station, and Miss Rose and I were interviewed by some of the students taking the radio course. They were well prepared and the whole time was filled in a perfectly natural and informal manner, which I am sure carried interest for their listeners, both on and off the campus.
The Master Farmers’ Dinner was a little less crowded than usual because of the condition of the roads, but it was a surprise to me to find how many guests were there. There was a table filled by master farmers and one filled by young people, who were also to receive awards. Unfortunately, in order to make our train from Elmira, Mrs. Morgenthau, Dr. Louise Stanley and I had to leave at 9:00 o’clock. We did have the pleasure of seeing Governor Lehman come in and speaking to him for a minute, and we also had a word with his secretary, Mr. Walter Brown. We missed hearing the glee club sing, which Mrs. Morgenthau and I always particularly enjoyed. Above all, we missed hearing the citations read and this is always the high spot of the evening for me, so we left with real regret. However, it was lucky that we took no later train, for the one we were on was due at 7:50 a.m. in Washington , and it arrived at ten-thirty.
I am spending the day trying to catch up on lost time.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/17.htm
February 17th, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM:
RAF Bomber Command: Daylight Reconnaissance - Heligoland area. 77 Sqn. Two aircraft. One returned early U/S with low oil pressure and has to fly back on one engine, the other sighted eight warships escorted by twelve destroyers. Heavy opposition.
The government plans to evacuate 400,000 children from the larger cities to rural areas. (Jack McKillop)
GERMANY: Manstein and Hitler review plans for the armoured attack through the Ardennes.
NORWAY: Strong British, Norwegian and German protest notes are exchanged over the Altmark incident where the British removed British prisoners from the ship in neutral Norwegian waters. (Jack McKillop)
SWEDEN: Stockholm: The Swedish government rejects Finnish requests for assistance.
FINLAND: The USSR has completed its conquest of the Mannerheim Line, with Timoshenko’s 54 Red Army divisions facing 15 depleted Finnish divisions.
[At the start of the war the Finnish Army had nine divisions. During the war, one more division (the 9th) was formed out of independent units, and two more (the 21st and 23rd) from replenishment troops, bringing the total at the end of the war to 12. (Mikko Härmeinen)]
Marshal Mannerheim has ordered his troops to abandon the first line of the Mannerheim Line and fall back to a second line of defences up to 10 miles away. The Finns have performed bravely, fighting off attack after attack for 16 days under a storm of cannon fire and bombs.
Yet now, tied to their defences, their is little they can do except hope to survive. Casualties are severe. Some regiments have lost two-thirds of their strength. Untrained recruits and veterans of the National Civil Guard have been thrown into the line where men have literally disappeared, blown away by the force of the bombardment.
General Timoshenko has concentrated his attack on the Summa area where the forest opens out into fields and there is room for his tanks to manoeuvre. The Russian soldiers, now well-led and well-trained, are showing themselves to be hardy and brave - and there are may more of them than of the Finns. A spokesman for the Finnish General Staff said last night that there were enormous heaps of Russian dead in front of the Finnish positions. He added: “Yet in spite of these losses we always feel that there are tens of thousands of Russians to be sent in. We need men and material, especially planes. So far the Finnish army has been able to hold its own, but we need the civilized nations to aid us to the utmost.”
GIBRALTAR: The U.S. freighter SS Exhibitor is detained by British authorities. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: President Franklin D. Roosevelt sends Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles on a “fact-finding” tour of Europe and appoints Myron C. Taylor as his “personal representative” to the Vatican. (Jack McKillop)
United States Lines sells the liner SS President Harding and seven cargo ships to a Belgian concern in an attempt to circumvent the ban on U.S. sea borne trade with Europe, imposed by the Neutrality Act. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0205, the unescorted SS Kvernaas (Master Ivar Sørensen) was hit by one torpedo from U-10 and sank within five minutes four miles NW of Schouwen Bank, Netherlands. The crew abandoned ship in two lifeboats and was picked up after 4 hours by the Dutch Oranjepolden. The vessel was en-route to London, but turned back and landed the men at the pilot station in Hoek van Holland the next day. The maritime hearings were held in Rotterdam (it was thought that the ship struck a mine) and a couple of weeks later the crew travelled to Amsterdam. From there they were flown to Sweden, then travelled on to Norway by train.
At 1553, SS Pyrrhus in Convoy OG-18 was hit by one torpedo from U-37 NW of Cape Finisterre and broke in two. The afterpart sank immediately and the forepart two days later. Eight crewmembers were lost. She was the ship of the vice-commodore Rear-Admiral R.A. Hamilton RN. The master, the vice-commodore, five naval staff members and 70 crewmembers were picked up by the British SS Uskside and Sinnington Court and landed at Gibraltar.
SS Wilja sunk by U-48 at 49.00N, 06.33W. (Dave Shirlaw)
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 170 February 17, 1940
Hitler learns of the Manstein plan. Protocol dictates that new corps commanders dine with the Führer. Hitler’s aide-de-camp Colonel Schmundt arranges for Hitler to hear Von Manstein’s proposal. Hitler, searching for an alternative to Halder’s lame thrust into Belgium, is impressed and notes similarities with his own ideas.
Finland. The Finns are no match for Soviet tanks in the open snow and fall back to the V-line. The Soviet attack again grinds to a halt on prepared defensive positions.
Battle of the Atlantic. At 2 AM, U-10 sinks Norwegian SS Kvernaas off the Dutch coast. All 20 crew abandon ship in two lifeboats and are picked up by Dutch SS Oranjepolder.
At 4 PM, U-37 sinks British SS Pyrrhus 75 miles west of La Coruña, Spain (8 lives lost). 77 survivors are picked up by British merchants Uskside & Sinnington Court and landed at Gibraltar. http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/263.html
At 8.36 PM, U-48 sinks Finnish SS Wilja south of Bishop Rock. All 27 crew are picked up by Dutch steamer Maasdam and taken to Havanna, Cuba.
http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/262.html
This is an excerpt from Dan Van der Vat's book The Atlantic Campaign. One thing I want to point out is that Van der Vat leaves the impression that the Admiralty didn't know that there were around 300 British prisoners on board the ship which based on the news articles we have read leading up to this show, that is not the case at all. In the media is was speculated that the Altmark held British prisoners, and it also is mentioned in some of the War Cabinet minutes as well. It just goes to show that even a good history book, and I consider this one quite good is still prone to error. Anything in brackets is my own commentary.
There was to be a postscript to the Graf Spee drama which was no less dashing and also bore momentous strategic implications. It came nine weeks later but belongs here [the end of the writing on the sinking of the Graf Spee]. The episode concerns the Graf Spee's support-ship, the Altmark. Her master, Captain Dahl of the Merchand Marine, parted company with the Graf Spee east of the Brazilian 'bulge' on December 6. On board were 299 British seamen from the Graf Spee's victims confined in grossly uncomfortable conditions in the holds. The Altmark, having heard of the River Plate events, lurked in the empty wastes of the south Atlantic, well away from the shipping lanes, until Dahl could be sure that the enemy naval forces had dispersed. On 24 January 1940 he began the long and daunting run home, right the way up the Atlantic, between Greenland and Iceland and over to the north Norwegian coast without being spotted (a remarkable exploit in itself, given that he crossed the convoy routes). By the time he got there, his ship, a large one in its day of 12,000 tons with capacity for 14,000 tonnes of oil, had a grey hull and white upperworks and was pretending to be Norwegian. She carried two concealed 4.1-inch guns and a pair of light repeating cannon under cover on her bridge. Her master, a a member of the naval reserve and a prisoner of war in their earlier conflict, loathed the British and took out his feelings on his captives, who were living in conditions approximating to a floating concentration camp. A naval detachment from the Graf Spee under a lieutenant was aboard to keep order.None of this was known to the British, [not entirely accurate] who simply regarded the Altmark as an item of unfinished business to be disposed of if and when possible. Dahl managed to creep all the way down the long Norwegian coast, usually inside territorial waters between the mainland and the string of offshore islands, almost invisible in the short hours of daylight and the bleak northern winter. Neutral Norwegian patrol boats stopped but did not search her on two occasions, contenting themselves with the master's assurance that all was in order and mindful of the acute sensitivity of German-Norwegian relations. Late on February 16 Admiral Forbes of the Home Fleet received intelligence from Norway that the wanted tanker had passed Bergen southbound at noon. Happily the light cruiser Arethusa and five destroyers of the Fourth Flotilla, led by Captain Philip Vian in HMS Cossack, had left Rosyth on the 14th to hunt German ore-carriers. These ships brought the strategically vital Swedish iron ore from the Norwegian port of Narvik during the winter, when the direct route from Sweden across the Baltic was icebound.
Forbes alerted Vian, who was working his way round the southern Norwegian coast from Kristiansand westward. At lunchtime on the 16th, a Coastal Command patrol sighted the Altmark. An hour or so later the Arethusa spotted her (by the red line of protective paint just showing above her waterline), some thirty miles south of Stavanger. She was inside territorial waters and was accompanied by two Norwegian patrol vessels. Two British destroyers tried to put men aboard but were frustrated by the Norwegians, who let the Altmark enter the Jøssingfjord, an inlet in the coastal cliffs. Vian took the Cossack in after her. The Norwegian torpedo-boat Kjell interposed herself and Vian was told that the tanker had been boarded off Bergen, found to be unarmed and allowed to continue her voyage in territorial waters. Nothing was known of British prisoners aboard [by the Norwegians].
Vian withdrew into international waters and asked the Admiralty direct for instructions. Churchill himself, as First Lord, consulted the Foreign Office and ordered Vian to offer to accompany the Norwegians with the Altmark back to Bergen - and if refused, to board the German regardless. The Admiralty was gambling that the Altmark must have something to hide: [they had good information to make this determination including reports from some of the men released in Montevideo] the impending violation of Norwegian neutrality was otherwise completely indefensible, as well as illegal under any conditions. Vian re-entered the Jøssingfjord, and when the Kjell refused to co-operate, put a strong boarding-party on the Altmark amid exchanges of small-arms fire between the British and German sailors, under the searchlight of the Cossack. It was all over by midnight. The British crammed their overjoyed seamen aboard and stripped the Altmark of her remaining array of machine-guns (the mountings of the heavier guns were found empty). Forbes, angry that the Admiralty had gone over his head in sending orders direct to Vian, sailed out his battleships to cover the Cossack's jubilant return to Rosyth on the 17th. The affair was a minor incident in itself, but it gave an excuse for another general celebration, stoked up by the newspaper headlines of the 'Hell-Ship Horror' variety. - Van der Vat, The Atlantic Campaign pp 147-149.
The outnumbered Finnish troops are fighting enemy tanks on the open snow without anti-tank guns.
Photo: SA-KUVA
Heavy fighting continues on the Isthmus
Manstein’s Plan. Second greatest operation in military history.
The first being Desert Storm?
The Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe, 1241. Deseert Storm is the Manstein plan on its side.
So is she trying to say that she wasn't healthy. Because Mr(s). Roosevelt was about as far from beauty as one could get.
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