Posted on 08/05/2011 5:01:22 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/aug41/f05aug41.htm
Germans eliminate Smolensk pocket
Tuesday, August 5, 1941 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... The fighting around Smolensk comes to an end. The Germans claim to have taken 310,000 prisoners and to have killed many of the 700,000-strong Soviet force. The Soviets admit far lower losses.
In Vichy France... Admiral Darlan is promoted to be in charge of government policy in North Africa. Wegand is to be his subordinate.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/05.htm
August 5th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: Sgt J. A. Ward (RNZAF) becomes the first and only member of Vickers Wellington bomber crew to be awarded the Victoria Cross. This is for gallantry when flying as a second pilot in an aircraft of No, 75 Squadron during a night raid on the 7th July. (22)
Destroyers HMS Partridge, Lauderdale launched.
Escort carrier HMS Campania laid down.
Destroyers HS Miaoulis (ex-HMS Modbury) laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.S.R.: Moscow: The Germans have wiped out the “Smolensk Pocket”, destroying the Russian sixteenth and Twentieth Armies and capturing 300,000 Russian soldiers, 3,200 tanks and 3,100 guns. It is a shattering defeat for the Red Army.
The pocket was created by General Hoth’s Panzer Group 3 and General Guderian’s Panzer Group 2 sweeping on from their victory at Minsk and then splitting north and south to encircle Smolensk.
Smolensk itself, the “gateway to Moscow”, fell on 16 July and the Russian forces east of the city were surrounded. At first they were contained only by the tanks, which had to wait for the infantry to arrive before attacking the pocket.
Last night the German High Command claimed: “the mass of Soviet forces surrounded east of Smolensk is now annihilated. The remainder faces disbandment.”
Marshal Timoshenko, commanding several newly-raised armies, tried to rescue the trapped armies, but his attacks were poorly prepared and, although some units broke through, the rescue attempt failed.
Fighting continues around Roslavl where the Russian Twenty-Eighth Army has also been hastily assembled to try to break the ring. Guderian launched his tanks against Roslavl on 1 August, captured it three days ago and badly mauled the Twenty-Eighth Army in the process. So total is this victory that many of the German soldiers think that there is little left between them and Moscow; they are putting up signposts pointing the way to the Russian capital. However, Hitler has already decided to switch Hoth to the north to reinforce the attack on Leningrad and Guderian to Kiev to the south, leaving Moscow to the infantry.
German communiqués continue to insist that territorial gains are not the main object of warfare - “what matters is that battles of extermination are proceeding.”
In the meantime, reserve Soviet units are being hurried into a new defensive line 20 miles to the east of Smolensk. It is a thin line, but it could hold the German infantry deprived of tanks.
NORTH AFRICA: Admiral Darlan is placed in charge of the Vichy police here. General Weygand is his subordinate.
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Amherst commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: At 0530 hours in Menemsha Bight, Vineyard Sound, Massachusetts, USA, the presidential yacht USS Potomac (AG-35), with President Franklin D Roosevelt aboard, comes alongside the heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) and moored; the President and his party board the cruiser and the ship embarks at 0617 hours. For security purposes, the President’s flag however, remained in Potomac while she, accompanied by the tender USS Calypso (AG-35), transited the Cape Cod Canal to New England waters. A Secret Serviceman, approximating the President in size and affecting the Chief Executive’s mannerisms when visible from a distance, played a starring role in the drama. Press releases issued daily from USS Potomac led all who read them to believe that “FDR” was really embarked in his yacht on a pleasure cruise. Meanwhile, USS Augusta, accompanied by the heavy cruiser USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) and 5 destroyers, stood out of Vineyard Sound at 0640 hours, at 20 knots passing the Nantucket Shoals lightship at 1125 hours. Increasing speed slightly during the night, the ships steamed on, darkened, to Ship Harbor, Placentia Bay, Argentia, Newfoundland to rendezvous with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. (Jack McKillop)
The first Vultee SNV-1 flies and was delivered to Naval Air Station (NAS) Corpus Christi, Texas. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0150, 0154 and 0159, U-372 fired four torpedoes at Convoy SL-81 west of Ireland. The first torpedo struck the Belgravian, which burned out and sank the next day. Neumann reported that the second torpedo missed the target but exploded on a ship beyond and that the fourth hit an ammunition freighter, which exploded and sank in 50 seconds. The ship missed was the British steam merchant Volturno, but it is not reported that the torpedo did hit another ship. The ship sunk was the Swiftpool. Three crewmembers from the Belgravian were lost. The master, 40 crewmembers and six gunners were picked up by corvette HMS Bluebell and landed at Gourock.
At 0540, U-74 fired a spread of two torpedoes at Convoy SL-81 west of Ireland and three single torpedoes at 0541 and 0542. The U-boat observed a hit amidships with the second torpedo and heard three detonations after the boat had to dive. Kentrat reported one ship sunk and three others damaged, however, only the Kumasian was hit and sunk.
One crewmember was lost. The master, 43 crewmembers, six gunners and nine passengers were picked up by corvette HMS La Malouine and landed at Liverpool.
At 0520, U-75 attacked Convoy SL-81 west of Ireland and observed a column of fire and water after a first hit and a column of water after a second hit. Ringelmann then had to dive and was not able to make further observations. The two ships hit were the Harlingen and the Cape Rodney. Cape Rodney was taken in tow by tug HMS Zwarte Zee two days later at 52°11N/14°42W. On 9 Aug the ship foundered west of Ushant in 52°44N/11°41W. The master, 31 crewmembers and four gunners were picked up by corvette HMS Hydrangea and landed at Gourock. Three crewmembers were picked up by corvette HMS Zinnia and landed at Londonderry. Three crewmembers from the Harlingen were lost. The master, 34 crewmembers and four gunners were picked up by Hydrangea and landed at Gourock. (Dave Shirlaw)
Not that I rooted for the Nazis, but I certainly hoped some of those Soviet victims were those who participated in the Katyn massacre.
One has to wonder how FDR, who could not walk, was transferred ship-to-ship.
“Taxes through levies on excess profits.”
I run my own business. I have often wondered where I can get some of them “excess” profits. My creditors would be happy to get their hands on them too. As would my wife.
THIS COSTS $323,000,000
A defense revenue bill, described by a Representative as the 'greatest tax bill ever imposed by a civilization upon its people,' was passed today by the House by a vote of 369 to 40, and sent to the Senate...
And which liberal-progressive-Democrats have forever hoped to reimpose in the name of "social justice" or "shared sacrifice," or whatever other slogan they felt might convince voters that our government is still too small and needs to grow and grow and ever grow to the sky.
;-)
I noticed on one of the lists a certain Lt.Col. Mark W Clark, promoted to one-star.
Wonder if he'll ever amount to anything?
"Eleven thousand Jews are murdered in the Polish city of Pinsk."
Maximilian Kolbe "Father Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish-Catholic priest and an inmate at the Auschwitz, Poland, concentration camp, sacrificed his life by volunteering to take the place of a fellow prisoner condemned to death.
The Nazis agreed to the switch and brutally murdered the priest.
"Incarcerated for disseminating his religious and social views, Kolbe continued to practice his faith at Auschwitz.
In July 1941, when a prisoner from his block escaped from the camp, the SS ordered the execution of ten inmates as retribution.
One of the selected victims, Francis Gajowniczek, pleaded for his life, sobbing over his wife and children.
The priest stepped from the numbed, terrified ranks and offered himself, saying he had no family.
"Locked naked in a dark, foul-smelling, underground cell, without food or water, he clung to life for two weeks. Impatient, the SS gave him a lethal injection of carbolic acid.
"In 1982 the Catholic Church canonized Kolbe as a saint."
"Many Ukrainians welcomed the Germans when they took Ternopol in July 1941.
What followed was a massacre of 5000 Jews, many of them burnt to death in their synagogues by Germans and Ukrainian nationalists.
A few months later the Germans created the Ternopol Ghetto, consisting of more than 12,000 Jews.
Only a few hundred Jews survived to liberation by the Soviet Army in 1944."
I hope to have an excerpt on just that subject to post in a few days. I will ping you.
.............the original aim (of the defense revenue bill) was to provide two-thirds of the defense costs through taxation and the other thirds by borrowing. However, between the time that aims was enunciated by Secretary Morgentheu in April and the present, the expenditures and commitments for defense have risen substantially, so that if the present measure became a law today, revenue would fall almost 50 percent below the amount necessary to finance the defense effort.
Wonder what the final was?
Don’t forget that a bathtub was installed on the Battleship Iowa for FDR later in the war.
Liner Tatuta Maru Sails
The $15,000,000 Japanese liner Tatuta Maru sailed for home today after hastily unloading $2,500,000 cargo of raw silk highly prized for the defense program
The Tatuta Maru at San Francisco discharged the last of her cargo about 6pm last night. Then she rounded up here 125 passengers, who had been waiting several days for sailing, rushed aboard supplies of 1,000 barrels of motor oil (all that was permitted her of a 9,000 barrel request), ballast cargo of cocoa beans and asphalt.
cocao beans are ballast cargo?
motor oil for operation of the liner or export?
A little info on the liner which was sunk by the Tarpon in 1943. Tatuta Maru the same as Tatsuta Maru per Wikpedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatsuta_Maru
Pretty doubtful. The executions were carried out by NKVD personnel. Those “heroes” didn’t usually stay around to fight.
In this picture is Admiral Mitscher
You’ll notice that there is also John P. Lucas on that promotion list. I’m betting he will have some history with the aforementioned Clark.
There really are some interesting people on this list.
Mark Clark - 5th Army - Italy
John Lucas - VI Corps - Italy
Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr - 10th Army - Okinawa (KIA)
Charles T. Harris - Commander of the Aberdeen Proving Grounds (did a lot of work there)
Homer Oldfield - Commander of the Anti-Aircraft Artillery Training Center
I bet if we looked at the other names on the list there would be others of significance.
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