GERMAN ARMIES ENTER KIEV, TAKE POLTAVA AND PUSH TOWARD KHARKOV AND DONETS BASIN (9/20/41)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 9/20/41 | C. Brooks Peters, Hanson W. Baldwin, Otto D. Tolischus

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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[Homer_J_Simpson]

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

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Advance on Moscow – Operations, 26 August-5 December 1941
The Mediterranean Basin
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941 – Major Japanese War Objectives and Planned Opening Attacks

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Billboard Top Ten for the Week of September 20, 1941

#1 – “Green Eyes” - Jimmy Dorsey, with Bob Eberly and Helen O’Connell
#2 - “Blue Champagne” – Jimmy Dorsey, with Bob Eberly
#3 – “Yours” – Jimmy Dorsey, with Bob Eberly
#4 - “Yes Indeed!” - Tommy Dorsey, with Jo Stafford and Sy Oliver
#5 - “Piano Concerto in B Flat” (“Tonight we Love”) - Freddy Martin, with Jack Fina
#6 - “Chattanooga Choo Choo” - Glenn Miller, with Tex Beneke and the Modernaires
#7 - “Til Reveille” – Bing Crosby
#8 - “You and I” – Glenn Miller, with Ray Eberly
#9 - “You and I” - Bing Crosby
#10 – “I Don’t Want to Set the World On Fire” – Tommy Tucker, with Amy Arnell and Voices 3

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Nazis Slash Ahead – 2-3
Kiev Resists Foe, Moscow Asserts – 4-5
Soviet Envoy’s Kin Leave Japan Amid Mines Dispute – 5
Japan in Third Drive in Changsha Region – 5
Army Puts Cadet Fliers in Olive-Drab Uniform – 5
Invaders Crush ‘Reds’ in South – 6-7
Update from Fort Dix, New Jersey – 7
Update from Fort Meade, Maryland – 7-8
Manchukuo Held to Need Our Help – 8
Nazis Put Losses at Only 402,865*; List Their Air Toll as 725 Planes – 8
Texts of the Day’s War Communiques – 9
Puts Nazi Forces at 10,000,000 Men – 9

* . . . only . . .. It’s all relative.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/sep41/f20sep41.htm

Italian midget subs strike Gibraltar

Saturday, September 20, 1941 www.onwar.com

In the Mediterranean... Italian midget submarines attack shipping in the harbor at Gibraltar and sink two ships.

In the North Atlantic... Heavy losses in convoys continue, but an aircraft from the British escort carrier, Audacity downs a Folfwolf Condor trying to shadow the convoy OG-74. This is the first time the carrier based aircraft have had a successful kill.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/20.htm

September 20th, 1941

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Convoy OG-74 is sailing with escort carrier HMS Audacity in the escort. Today an aircraft, from Audacity, downs a FW-Condor shadowing the convoy. 6 of 27 ships in the convoy are lost during the crossing.

Whilst escorting convoy SC.44, Flower class corvette HMS Levis is torpedoed and sunk by U-74 South of Ireland at 60 07N 38 37W. Levis sinks within a minute of the torpedo striking. (Alex Gordon)(108)

GIBRALTAR: Italian midget submarines attack shipping in the harbour. They sink 2 ships.
Led by Prince Giunio Borghese, three two-man submarines, penetrated the defences and sank 20,000 tons of shipping. Their mother ship is a converted submarine, moored off the Spanish coast. All the frogman returned safely.

MALTA: The first ‘Hurribomber’ Hawker Hurricane fighter-bomber conversions go into service today. They can carry two 250-lb bombs. (22)

FRANCE: Paris: A curfew is imposed between 9pm and 5am.

While flying an offensive sweep over Northern France, the pilots of No. 452 Squadron, RAAF, equipped with Spitfire Mk. VBs and based at Kenley, Surrey, England, claims seven Luftwaffe Bf 109s shot down and two damaged. (Jack McKillop)

UNITED KINGDOM: Enigma decodings give Britain and the USSR advance warning of an all-out German assault on Moscow.

The first successful sortie by the photo-reconnaissance variant of the de Havilland Mosquito was made today when W 4055 (LY-T) of the RAF Photographic Development Unit based at RAF Benson flew a daylight reconnaissance over Brest, La Pallice and Bordeaux, returning over Paris. Although it was chased by three Messerschmitt Me 109 fighters, the Mosquito easily outpaced them at 23,000 ft. (22)

[Tuxedo]

Babyn Yar massacre by the Einsatzgruppen happened soon afterwards.

[CougarGA7]

• The 3rd Panzer Division attacks southwest of Lokhvista capturing General V.N. Sotensky, the 5th Army's artillery commander. Later in the day, in the Shumeikovo Woods, Kirponos, Potapov, and around 2,000 troops fought the advancing German division. By the end of the day, Colonel-General Mikhail Kirponos and Major-General V.I. Tupikov were killed and Lieutenant-General Potapov was captured.

[Rebelbase]

So when does the snow start falling? Tomorrow is the first day of fall.

[Billthedrill]

Great stuff, and thanks again for your dedication to this project. I just finished Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor. Your next few months are going to be very, very interesting.

It's still nearly a year away but you can see it developing: the sweep by Army Group A into the Caucasus for the oil, the holding position of Army Group B in a strategic town at a loop of the Volga. Once the Soviets are swept from that town the entire Volga will be a line of defense and the border of the Reich. On a map it looks great. And by now the Russian army was finished, or at least that's what Hitler was told. But they weren't, and they're moving the factories into the Urals at this point. Hitler has awakened his own "sleeping giant" and things are about to get very ugly indeed.

[Billthedrill]

One more thing - I see that financier Bernard Baruch called for wage and price controls in this issue. Richard Nixon was 28 years old. What a very odd thing.

[dfwgator]

“The German Army in fighting Russia is like an elephant attacking a host of ants. The elephant will kill thousands, perhaps even millions, of ants, but in the end their numbers will overcome him, and he will be eaten to the bone.”

—Colonel Bernd Von Kielst

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Bookworm ping.

I just finished Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor. Your next few months are going to be very, very interesting.

I haven't gotten very far ahead in my news gathering for future threads, but I have already seen an early mention of that industrial city which bears the name of Comrade #1. By this time next year it should be a familiar name to everyone who reads the paper.

[jjm2111]

Thanks again for all the hard work on these posts. Very fascinating stuff.