Posted on 03/06/2012 4:29:27 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
* The text is a little smaller than usual because the scanning copy overflowed the template at the top and bottom. It is so unusual for the communiques to come out on one piece of paper I decided to give it a try. I will keep the copy and if it is too hard to read I will cut it down to size and repost it. Let me know – Homer.
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/mar42/f06mar42.htm
Germans warships hunt for Arctic convoys
Friday, March 6, 1942 www.onwar.com
In the Arctic... The German battleship Tirpitz sets sail from her base in Trondheim to intercept the ships of convoys QP-8 and PQ-12 running from Iceland to Archangel. Despite information sent to the British carrier Victorious, no contact is made between the forces. The British Admiralty draws criticism because of its inaction.
In Burma... British General Alexander’s’ counterattacks against the Japanese fail and he confirms the order to retreat from Rangoon.
In the Mediterranean... British carrier Eagle brings 18 Spitfires to Malta. 7 Blenheim bombers are also sent to aid in the defense of the island and offensive actions against Axis convoys.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
March 6th, 1942
GERMANY: When AT&T started transatlantic radiotelephone in the 1920s, it scrambled the calls to protect against interception.
The Deutsche Reichspost, which handled telecommunications, realised that the calls might provide useful intelligence. Kurt Vetterlein, one of the young engineers of the Forschungsanstalt, cryptanalysed the privacy system. Today, the German postal minister, Wilhelm Ohnesorge (party number 42), writes to his Führer to report this success. He appends an intercept of 7 September 1941 between two British officials.
The Reichspost set up an intercept post in a youth hostel on the Dutch coast near Noordwijk, later moving it to a brick-and-concrete bunker at the intersection of Nieuwe Waalreseweg and De Hazelaar streets in Valkenswaard.
The unit intercepted no fewer than 30 calls a day, and sometimes as many as 60. A half dozen interpreters listened to them and chose the most valuable.
Most talks were between medium- and high-level officials.
But Churchill liked the telephone and rang Roosevelt at all hours. They and a few other high officials were not given the warnings about telephone insecurity that other officials were, which the Germans took as an indication that an important person was coming on the line. The speakers were sometimes indiscreet.
But allusions and incomplete references made it hard for the Germans to gain much intelligence from the talks. The most pregnant sentences in a conversation between Churchill and Hopkins were “Can you give me any hopeful answer?” and “Yes.”
Roosevelt-Churchill conversations told the Germans only that the cross-Channel invasion was coming closer and hardened the German decision to get troops into Italy after the collapse of Mussolini’s government. None provided any extraordinary insight into Allied plans. As a German Foreign Office official disappointedly noted on a sheaf of intercepts, “There is in general not much to be gotten from them.”
Nevertheless, the Americans, aware of the weakness of the AT&T scrambler, developed a much superior system, codenamed SIGSALY. It provided the acoustic equivalent of the one-time pad – the only theoretically and practically unbreakable cryptosystem. Requiring bays of electronic equipment and many phonographic disks of random sound that were destroyed after one use, SIGSALY terminals served the White House through an extension, Churchill’s underground offices also through an extension, and other Allied headquarters worldwide. High officials used it, and it seems never to have been intercepted, much less solved, though the older AT&T system seems to have c0ontinued in use.
The president and the prime minister also communicated using written messages over the transatlantic cable. These were encrypted. (Ed Miller)(235 pp. 554-557, 449-500)(236 pp. 172-176)(237)(238, pp. 70-80)
U-535 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
NORWAY: The German battleship Tirpitz sets sail from her base in Trondheim to intercept the ships of convoys QP-8 and PQ-12 sailing from Iceland to Archangel, U.S.S.R. Despite information sent to the British aircraft carrier HMS Victorious, no contact is made between the forces. The British Admiralty draws criticism because of its inaction. (Jack McKillop)
ROMANIA: The government breaks diplomatic relations with Brazil. (Jack McKillop)
SPAIN: Madrid severs diplomatic relations with Norway. (Dave Shirlaw)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: HMS Eagle ferries 18 Spitfires to Malta, while seven Blenheim bombers fly in from North Africa.
BLACK SEA: SMYSHLENY, Soviet Destroyer, Mined in the Kerch Straits.
BURMA: The newly arrived British 63d Brigade, under command of the Indian 17th Division, makes a futile effort to clear the block on the Rangoon-Pegu road and relieve the Pegu garrison, which is isolated. Lieutenant General Sir Harold Alexander, General Officer Commanding Burma Army, orders Rangoon evacuated since the situation in lower Burma is deteriorating rapidly; a denial program is to be put into effect at 0001 hours tomorrow. (Jack McKillop)
CHINA: U.S. Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, Commanding General American Army Forces, China, Burma, and India, confers for the first time with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in Chungking. (Jack McKillop)
NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES: On Java, the Japanese advance has sealed the Australian, British, Dutch and U. S. defenders into two pockets, one in the central highlands, the other near Surabaya, the Dutch naval base. (Jack McKillop)
JAVA SEA: JAN VAN AMSTEL, Dutch Minesweeper, Sunk in Madura Strait by surface action
PIETER DE BITTER, Dutch Minesweeper, Scuttled at Soerabaja
ELAND DUBOIS, Dutch Minesweeper, Scuttled in Gili Genteng Roads, Java
(James Paterson)
CANADA:
Minesweeper HMCS Canso commissioned.
HMC ML 066 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: The motion picture “To Be or Not to Be” opens at the Rivoli Theater in New York City. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, this comedy about Poland in World War II stars Jack Benny, Carole Lombard and Robert Stack. This was Lombard’s last film. (Jack McKillop)
Submarine USS Scamp laid down.
Submarine USS Amberjack launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: German submarine U-129 torpedoes and sinks an unarmed U.S. freighter SS Steel Age about 130 miles (209 kilometres) northeast of Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, at 06.45N, 53.15W, and takes the sole survivor captive. 33 crewmembers are lost. (Jack McKillop)
Motor tanker Sydhav sunk by U-505 at 04.47N, 14.57W.
U-587 erroneously reported the name of the ship as Hawse Gude, but it must have been Hans Egede, which was reported missing in Canadian waters on 4 March.
At 2306, steam trawler Rononia was hit amidships by one torpedo from U-701, broke in two and sank within a few seconds. (Dave Shirlaw)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_in_being
In naval warfare, a fleet in being is a naval force that extends a controlling influence without ever leaving port. Were the fleet to leave port and face the enemy, it might lose in battle and no longer influence the enemy’s actions, but while it remains safely in port the enemy is forced to continually deploy forces to guard against it. A fleet in being can be part of a sea denial doctrine but not one of sea control.
Even more so than other surface vessels in the German Navy (Kriegsmarine), the powerful German battleship Tirpitz served her entire career as a ‘fleet in being’ in her own right. Although she never fired a shot at an enemy ship, her mere presence forced the Royal Navy to allocate powerful warships in defending Arctic convoys, and caused a major convoy (PQ-17) to scatter, suffering huge losses, mainly to U-boats and aircraft.
"During a meeting at the Head Office for Reich Security, Adolf Eichmann emphasizes the need for strict security during deportation and annihilation of Jews presently living in Germany, Austria, Moravia, and Bohemia."
"Initially a labor camp, Belzec became an extermination facility in March 1942, with killings conducted first by carbon monoxide and then by Zyklon B.
In spite of the orderly impression conveyed by this formation of SS guards, the killing process often went awry, inflicting horrendous suffering upon its victims.
The guards jokingly referred to the killing site as the Hackenholt Foundation, named after SS Hauptscharführer Lorenz Hackenholt (second row, far right), who ran the diesel motor that produced the carbon monoxide."
Cougar, note references to our previous discussions.
Thanks for an interesting conceptual post.
Do you suppose that President Roosevelt did not understand this concept as it related to the US "fleet in being" at Pearl Harbor?
Do you suppose that FDR might not have considered possible Japanese options relating to his "fleet in being"?
Carbon monoxide took a long time and was deemed too inefficient. Peoples tolerance (oxygen requirements) differed and facilities often had some sort of air leak resulting in less than 100% fatalities when the engines were turned off and the doors swung open.
What then would the term be used to describe the U.S. Asiatic Fleet whose blue water vessels left Manila Bay and fled from the enemy while the 29 submarines which did not flee from the enemy responded to the early morning Dec 8, 1941 war notification and orders to prepare for a dawn attack by submerging in Manila Bay?
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