U.S. DESTROYER HIT BY TORPEDO OFF ICELAND (10/18/41)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 10/18/41 | Turner Catledge, Frank L. Kluckhohn, Otto D. Tolischus, Hallett Abend, Daniel T. Brigham, more

[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]

There are three different versions of “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” in the Top Ten this week. Homer’s favorite is the new #5.

Billboard Top Ten for the Week of October 18, 1941

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

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Kearny Attacked – 2-3
Kearny in Limits, Says President – 4
Double Bottoms Shield Kearny – 4
Germans Silent on Kearny Attack – 4-5
The International Situation – 5
Gen. Tojo Forms Cabinet in Tokyo – 5-6
Tojo is Advocate of Total War Economy; New Japanese Leader Known as Anti-Soviet – 6-7
Japanese Upset Alarms Antipodes * – 7
Watching War Games in the Philippines (photo) – 7
Orel is Retaken, Moscow Reports – 8-9
Secret Capital Set Up by Soviet – 9
Nazis Claim Dent in Moscow Forts – 9-10
8 U.S.-Owned Ships Sunk of 10 Attacked in War – 10
Trade and Recruiting Pushed in Palestine – 10
Drug Flown from U.S. Saves Britons in Africa – 10
In Iceland: United States and British Troops in ‘General Store’ (photo) – 11
The Texts of the Day’s War Communiques – 12-13
World Climax Nearer (by Hanson W. Baldwin) – 13

* It looks like six months was the limit for Hallett in Washington after his years of reporting from the Far East. He checks in today from Auckland.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/oct41/f18oct41.htm

Germans closing in on Moscow
Saturday, October 18, 1941 www.onwar.com

On the Eastern Front... Mozhaysk is taken by units from the German Panzer Group 4 as the Germans continue their drive to Moscow.

In the Mediterranean... Malta’s air forces are increased with the addition of a force of strike planes flown in from Gibraltar. Their function to continue to harass Axis supply lines through the Mediterranean to North Africa.

[beebuster2000]

i guess at this point the japanese have already decided on the pearl harbor operation and attack date. true?

[Homer_J_Simpson]

i guess at this point the japanese have already decided on the pearl harbor operation and attack date. true?

Affirmative to both. The attack is still to be called off if a diplomatic solution is engineered, but none of the military or political leaders seriously expect that to happen. According to my excerpt from Prange on October 13 the attack date was set for Dec. 8 Japanese time, Dec. 7 local time as early as October 11.

[GreenLanternCorps]

Yes, and it’s not just Pearl Harbor. The Japanese will be landing troops in the north of Malaya BEFORE the attack on Hawaii takes place. However because it is on an isolated beach, confirmation of the landing will not reach anyone in London or Washington until after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor was part of an integrated attack plan to seize the Philippines, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. By October 18th, 1941 there is simply too much momentum behind the plan to stop it.

[fso301]

Pearl Harbor was part of an integrated attack plan to seize the Philippines, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. By October 18th, 1941 there is simply too much momentum behind the plan to stop it.

A plan which probably saved Russia.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Pearl Harbor was part of an integrated attack plan to seize the Philippines, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies.

If I read my history right, there wouldn't have been much grumbling from navy people if the Pearl Harbor operation had been called off. Conventional wisdom (outside Yamamoto's circle of disciples) was that it was a dangerous diversion of resources badly needed for the enormously ambitious southern operation.

[beebuster2000]

still the most monumental strategic error of all time. i cant think of anything even in second place in comparison.
well maybe austria attacking serbia in 1914.

[CougarGA7]

• Manstein's Eleventh Army drives Soviet forces into Sevastopol'.

[CougarGA7]

Here's a series of photos of the damage to the USS Kearny.

[fso301]

If I read my history right, there wouldn't have been much grumbling from navy people if the Pearl Harbor operation had been called off. Conventional wisdom (outside Yamamoto's circle of disciples) was that it was a dangerous diversion of resources badly needed for the enormously ambitious southern operation.

That's really a tough one to know. For Japan to move south and seize the raw materials in Indonesia and Malaysia, war with Britain was unavoidable. Given American levels of support to the British against Germany and Italy, Japan could not expect America to maintain neutrality. The American held Philippines then represented a serious threat to Japanese naval lines to South Asia via the South China Sea.

[BroJoeK]

October 17, 1941

"Two civilian bureaucrats, Wilhelm Frick (left) and Hans Globke (right) join their military colleagues in a parade.
Frick played a vital role in the Nazi Party's rise to power, first as minister of the interior in Thuringia and later as Reich minister of the interior.
Although he never joined the Party, Globke served as the ministry's director of the citizenship department, and was a legal advisor to Frick.
In that role, Globke participated in formulating the commentary on the Reich Citizenship Law, differentiating between Jew and German and depriving Jews of their basic rights."

---

October 18, 1941

"During a roundup of Jews in Poland, a German soldier checks a boy to see if he is a Jew by examining his genitals for circumcision.
Despite German claims that Jews displayed obvious racial features that distinguished them from Aryans, sometimes even "experts" with calipers to measure skull dimensions were unable to discover who was a Jew and who was Aryan.
Checking males for circumcision was a less scientific but more pragmatic method."

[dfwgator]

"During a roundup of Jews in Poland, a German soldier checks a boy to see if he is a Jew by examining his genitals for circumcision. Despite German claims that Jews displayed obvious racial features that distinguished them from Aryans, sometimes even "experts" with calipers to measure skull dimensions were unable to discover who was a Jew and who was Aryan. Checking males for circumcision was a less scientific but more pragmatic method."

Makes me think of the movie, "Europa, Europa."

[beebuster2000]

wow. pretty tough little ship.

on a DD ping: just re read parts of “Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors”, one book that will choke you up big time.

[beebuster2000]

my read of history is that the Japanese Navy really thought they could smack the US hard and then had a chance to hold a defensive perimeter and run out the clock on the US willingness to fight.