LASHIO FALLS, FIGHTING RAGES NEAR BY; STALIN SAYS HE SEEKS NO FOREIGN SOIL (5/1/42)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 5/1/42 | Craig Thompson, Hanson W. Baldwin

[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
Battle of Bataan, 1942
Luzon, P.I., 1941: Centrifugal Offensive, 10 December 1941-6 May 1942-Fourteenth Army Operations on Luzon
Netherlands East Indies, 1941: Japanese Centrifugal Offensive, December 1941-April 1942, Sixteenth Army and Southern Force (Navy) Operations
Southern Asia, 1941: Japanese Centrifugal Offensive (and Continued Operations), January-May 1942
Eastern Europe, 1941: Soviet Winter Offensive – Operations, 6 December 1941-7 May 1942
North Africa, 1940: Rommel’s Second Offensive, 21 January-7 July 1942

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Barbara W. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45

[Homer_J_Simpson]

The index by author on Homer’s profile is now updated through May 7, 1942.

Burma Town Afire (Thompson) – 2
War News Summarized – 2
Premier Tells Aim – 3
Madagascar’s Role (Baldwin) – 4
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the Fighting in Various War Zones – 5-6

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/may42/f01may42.htm

Japanese capture Manadaly
Friday, May 1, 1942 www.onwar.com

Japanese troops enter Manadaly [photo at link]

In Burma... Manadaly falls to the Japanese.

In the Philippines... Japanese land more reinforcements on Mindanao and heavy fighting continues.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm

Yesterday Tomorrow

May 1st, 1942

UNITED KINGDOM: Destroyer HMS Whelp laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
FRANCE: Paris: Lacan the Egyptologist, the Orientalist Pelliot and a dozen of their colleagues at the Collège de France and the Académie des Sciences have been thrown into Fresnes prison for a few days. It is thought that the police found their names on a list of those helping an underground paper. Lacan tells me that they were able to keep up with the news by asking for lavatory paper, and the wardens cut up the daily newspaper.

The Arno Brecker exhibition opens today at the Orangerie. Brecker had been influenced by Rodin. His neoclassical idealizations of the human figure coincided with Hitler’s preconceptions of great art, with the result that Brecker has become a kind of Reich sculptor in chief.

GERMANY:
U-966 laid down.

U-189 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.S.R.: Moscow: Stalin promises that he has no territorial ambitions abroad.

BURMA: Mandalay falls to the Japanese.

PACIFIC OCEAN: The US submarine USS Grenadier (SS-210) sinks the Soviet freighter SS Angarstroi about 90 miles (145 km) west southwest of Nagasaki, Japan. (Jack McKillop)

CANADA:
Corvette HMCS Woodstock commissioned.

HMC MTB 340, 341, 342 and 343 completed in Canada. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.A.: Graduates of the first class of MIS Language School are sent to the Aleutians and the South Pacific. Field commanders clamour for more Nisei linguists.

May, 1942 Richard Sakakida becomes P.O.W. when Corregidor falls.

Corvette HMCS Bittersweet completed forecastle extension refit Charleston.

Submarine USS Paddle laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Northeast of Iceland at 66 00N, 08 00W: While acting as screen to the home fleet the destroyer HMS PUNJABI is rammed and sunk by the battleship HMS King George V in fog. Force “Distaff,” the combined US Navy and Royal Navy force that is protecting convoy PQ-15 en-route to Murmansk, is off Iceland when the RN battleship HMS King George V collides with and sinks the destroyer HMS Punjabi. Punjabi sinks stern down almost immediately, the US battleship USS Washington (BB-56) is unable to manoeuvre around the wreckage and must sail through it and the depth charges in HMS Punjabi explode underwater damaging the Washington’s fire control systems. As the forward section sank more slowly, 205 officers and men including the commander were able to be rescued. (Jack McKillop and Alex Gordon(108))

Canadian Zwicker and H.O. Emptage fishing vessel James E Newsome sunk by gunfire from U-69 at 35.20N, 059.40W. Newsome’s crew of 9 reached Bermuda by boat.

At 1136, the unescorted La Paz was hit by one of two torpedoes from U-109 in shallow waters about 10 miles SE of Cape Canaveral. 42 crewmembers abandoned ship in three lifeboats, while the master and 14 crewmembers remained on board to save the ship. A first torpedo had missed the ship at 1101. Bleichrodt observed how the ship sank by the stern until it rested on the bottom with the bow out of the water and heard another detonation one minute later, thinking that the second torpedo had hit a ship of a tug convoy, which had been spotted earlier further inshore, but apparently the torpedo exploded as it hit the shore. He claimed the Nicaraguan MS Worden, identified by an intercepted radio message, but the vessel only reported the distress of the La Paz and took the damaged ship in tow. With the help of some shrimp cutters, she was subsequently beached with the forward section in a distance of about seven miles in 28°19N/80°33´30W. The La Paz was salvaged together with the cargo after being sold to US agents and passed to the US War Shipping Administration (WSA). She was towed to Jacksonville, repaired and returned to service on 7 Oct 1942 as ship of the US Maritime Commission (USMC).

At 2046, the unescorted Parnahyba was hit by one torpedo from U-162 near Trinidad. The ship was finished off with 56 rounds from the deck gun after the survivors abandoned ship.

SS Tsiolkovskij sunk by U-589 at 71.46N, 34.30E in Convoy QP-11.

At 0543, the Bidevind was hit by a torpedo from U-752. The entire crew abandoned ship safely, but one of the lifeboats was hit by debris, which was thrown in the air by a second torpedo hit and injured the 17 men in it. They were transferred to the motor lifeboat that came to assist and they arrived near Toms River, New Jersey the next day. The Bidevind foundered later that day in 40°13N/73°46W. (Dave Shirlaw)

[fso301]

It certainly is reassuring that Uncle Joe says he seeks no foreign soil. You see, he really is a swell guy.

[freefdny]

“Richard Sakakida becomes POW”. That is an amazing story. A Nisei spy tortured and imprisoned by the Japanese still able to help the Philippine resistance.

[freefdny]

“Richard Sakakida becomes POW”. That is an amazing story. A Nisei spy tortured and imprisoned by the Japanese still able to help the Philippine resistance.

[Snickering Hound]

May 1, Shokaku and Zuikaku weigh anchor in Truk and head south to support the amphibious invasion of Port Moresby. The invasion is prevented by the Battle of the Coral Sea.

[central_va]

USS Paddle laid down

After refit at Fremantle 1944, Paddle made her fifth patrol, from 22 August–25 September, encountering few contacts in her assigned area in the Sulu Sea. On 7 September, attacked and destroyed the Shinyo Maru and damaged another of her convoy. Shinyo Maru, unmarked as a prisoner of war carrier and unknown to Paddle, was carrying over 750 Allied POWs from the Philippine Islands to Manila when sunk by Paddle. The Japanese crew and patrol boats killed all but 83 of Shinyo Maru's POWs before they could reach shore. One survivor died on shore, one elected to remain in the Philippines and 81 returned home. As of 2006, seventeen "Survivors of the Shinyo Maru" remained alive in the U.S.[citation needed]; fourteen survivors met at the "eighth -- and final -- survivors reunion" in Florida in 2000.[5]

[henkster]

From Parshall and Tully's "Shattered Sword; The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" p. 61-62:

[henkster]

Of all the poor decisions made by the Japanese in WWII, the most perplexing to me was their naval construction. They hit upon a very effective carrier design with Shokaku & Zuikaku. They were large, fast, had good aircraft capacity and were hard to kill. Even though they were not going to make 24 of them as we did with Essex class carriers, there is no reason they could not have built another six or eight on a production basis. There is no good reason to have stopped at two and gone the route of Taiho and Unryu.

[central_va]

Of all the poor decisions made by the Japanese in WWII, the most perplexing to me was their naval construction.

So many bad decisions.... IMO the choice to not put self sealing fuel tanks and armor in the seat/cockpit in almost every naval aircraft was just plain stupid. Their Army planes were slightly better, but not by much.

Also no PT boats! They used modified LCP's (armed barges) for adhoc PT boats how retarded is that?

[BroJoeK]

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During May of 1942:

• "More than 3,600 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto die of starvation. Nazis force their way into Jewish apartments in Warsaw, shoot and club the residents, and throw the bodies from windows.

• "A slave-labor camp opens near Minsk, Belorussia.

• "Small groups of Jewish youths manage to escape into the woods outside Lida and Stolpce, towns in Belorussia.

• "Slovakian Jews and resident Jews at Chelm are deported to the nearby Sobibór death camp and gassed.
  In addition, more than 36,000 Polish Jews from communities located between the Vistula and Bug rivers are gassed at Sobibór.

• "In the Eastern Galicia region of Poland, Jews aged 14 to 60 are driven to isolated spots and killed by hand grenades and machine guns after being forced to dig their own graves.
  Other victims of this Aktion include orphans, residents of old-age homes, and women in the streets.

• "Inmates at Auschwitz-Birkenau are put to work as slave laborers at the camp itself and at a synthetic-oil and rubber plant at nearby Monowitz.

• "Jewish women at Auschwitz-Birkenau are selected for medical experiments.

• "A Jewish inmate at a labor camp at Schwenningen, Germany, is buried in earth up to his shoulders as punishment for having an attack of diarrhea outside a barracks; after more than ten hours in the ground, the man dies.

• "A slave-labor camp opens at Maly Trostinets, Belorussia.

• "In Holland, a collaborationist auxiliary police unit, Vrijwillige Hulp-Politie (Volunteer Auxiliary Police), is established.
  It is charged with the roundup of Dutch Jews for deportation to the East.

• "Communist Jews in Paris initiate organized armed resistance to the Nazi occupiers.

• "The Bund (Jewish Labor Organization of Poland) appeals to the Polish government-in-exile in London to persuade the Allied governments to warn the German government about the consequences of the murder of the Polish Jews.
  The Bund's appeal contains detailed information concerning the systematic mass murder of Jews.
  It reports that 700,000 Polish Jews have already been executed.

• "2,600 Libyan Jews are deported to a forced-labor camp at Giado, Libya, to build roads for the military.

• "More than 1,750 Jews are deported from Tripoli, Libya, to forced-labor sites at the Libyan cities of Benghazi, Homs, and Derna.
  Hundreds perish from heat and hunger, and others die during Allied bombings after being forbidden to use air-raid shelters."

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