Posted on 11/24/2012 5:14:17 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/nov42/f24nov42.htm
Surrounded German 6th Army fights on
Tuesday, November 24, 1942 www.onwar.com
From Berlin... Hitler orders General Paulus and 6th Army, encircled in front of Stalingrad to stand. Reichmarshal Goring has promised that his Luftwaffe can supply them by air until they can be relieved.
On the Eastern Front... Manstein arrives at Army Group A Headquarters. The forces allocated to him to create Army Group Don are either severely under strength or trapped near Stalingrad. The only significant force available to him is a division which is needed need to hold the position at Elista, which maintains the link with Army Group A in the Caucasus. Cooperation from the other Army Group commanders on the Eastern Front and the German Army High Command is reluctant when Manstein requests reserves. His build up is therefore slow. In the area west of Moscow... Soviet attacks advance around Rzhev and Velikiye Luki.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
November 24th, 1942
UNITED KINGDOM:
Frigate HMS Tweed launched.
Submarine HMS Upstart launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY:
U-236 launched.
U-387 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.S.R.: Manstein is ordered south to restore the situation with the German Army Group Don and take over command. He finds non-existent resources. Other than the surrounded 6th Army at Stalingrad and 2 remaining division of the Rumanian 3rd Army he has one division holding positions at Elista. Other commanders reluctantly hand over some reserves resulting in a slow buildup of his forces. Much of his problem was created by Hitler’s order to hold on at Stalingrad. He issued this order after Goering’s wild claim that Stalingrad could be held by resupply by air. Goering’s Luftwaffe will lose about 500 aircraft in the process of failing to resupply the 6th Army.
He will evacuate 42,000 wounded and some specialists.
The Red Army mounts some attacks in the Moscow sector near Rzhev.
(Sergey Anisimov)(69)Polar Fleet and White Sea Flotilla: Shipping loss. MS T-105 - wrecked at Danilov Is. rocks (disarmed and mothballed Aug.16, 1943)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: RAF Beaufighters shoot down a Blohm und Voss Bv 222 six-engined flying-boat, the largest flying-boat in the world. The aircraft was the V6 (X4-FH) of Luft-Transportstaffel (See) 222. (21)
Submarine HMS Utmost sunk in Tyrrhenian Sea (36-30’N, 12-00’E) - by depth charges of Italian destroyer escort Groppo. On patrol off Marittimo Island. (Dave Shirlaw)
ALGERIA: The presidents of the General Councils of Oran, Algiers and Constantine denounce French Admiral Jean-Francois Darlan, High Commissioner for French North Africa, for acting under the authority of Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain, Head of the Vichy French State. The Presidents express their opinion that in doing so the Admiral has shown that he has fulfilled none of the conditions which would allow him to assume the powers of an independent and legal government. (Jack McKillop)
USAAF Twelfth Air Force fighters patrol the Oran-Nouvion-Tafaraoui area, and fly sea patrol off Oran and destroy several aircraft and attack ground targets in the vicinity of Gabes, Tunisia. (Jack McKillop)
TUNISIA: The British First Army is ordered to advance on Tunis, with Tebourba and Mateur as first objectives. The main body of Combat Command B, U.S. 1st Armored Division, begins a move from Tafaraoui, Algeria, to Tunisia; forward elements (1st Battalion of 1st Armored Regiment) arrive at BC)dja and are attached to Blade Force. (Jack McKillop)
USAAF Twelfth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses, with P-38 Lightning escort, are dispatched against the harbor at Bizerte but must abort because of bad weather. (Jack McKillop)
LIBYA: Rommel today halted his westward flight from El Alamein 100 miles south of Benghazi, at El Agheila. For more than two weeks his battered Afrika Korps has kept one step ahead of the pursuit force formed by the 7th Armoured and New Zealand Divisions of the Eighth Army. Rommel would like to withdraw to Europe, but Hitler and Mussolini have vetoed this proposal.
The front is quiet generally as General Bernard Montgomery, General Officer Commanding Eighth Army, plans an assault on the El Agheila bottleneck. The British army forces must be regrouped and supplies and reinforcements amassed. (Jack McKillop)
USAAF Ninth Air Force P-40s patrol over the Bengasi and Derna areas. (Jack McKillop)
BURMA: Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, Commander in Chief US China-Burma-India Theater of Operations, Chief of Staff to Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, and Commander in Chief Northern Area Combat Command (NCAC) is informed by the U.S. War Department that little more aid, aside from existing commitments, can be provided for the northern Burma offensive. (Jack McKillop)
NEW GUINEA: In Papua New Guinea, the Japanese continue to repel efforts of the Australian 25th Brigade, 7th Division, to take Gona. The 3d Battalion of the 126th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 32d Infantry Division, pushes on toward Sanananda: Two Australian companies join Company L in a battle for the food dump on the right; on the left, Companies I and K reach a clearing west of Killerton trail, some 1,200 yards (1 097 meters) north of the original starting point, but are driven back into a swamp by Japanese infiltrators. The Urbana Force launches a co-ordinated assault on the Triangle at 1428 hours after ineffective air and a brief mortar preparation. While Company F of the 126th Infantry Regiment makes a frontal assault in which Company H of the 128th Infantry Regiment joins, Company E of the 126th Infantry Regiment takes over the left flank positions along the Entrance Creek and Companies E and G of the 128th Infantry Regiment attack on the right flank. The attack, although carefully planned, is a failure. The Warren Force front along coast is quiet. (Jack McKillop)
In Papua New Guinea, USAAF Fifth Air Force A-20 Havocs, B-25 Mitchells, B-26 Marauders, B-17 Flying Fortresses, P-40s, and P-39and P-400s Airacobras, hit Sanananda Point, the Buna area, the Sanananda-Soputa trail south of Sanananda, and the area between Cape Killerton and Sanananda Point as Allied forces launch a ground assault on The Triangle; the attack is repelled by fierce resistance. USAAF B-17s and B-25s and RAAF Beaufighters sink Japanese destroyer HIJMS Hayashio in Huon Gulf between Lae and Finschafen and damage torpedo boats Otori and Hiyodori east of Lae. (Jack McKillop)
SOLOMON ISLANDS: Japan lands a team of engineers at Munda in New Georgia to build an airfield.
Search aircraft over the Buin, Bougainville Island area report a large number of destroyers and cargo vessels in the harbor. By this date elements of the Americal Division have pushed along the N coast of Guadalcanal Island to a position S of Point Cruz where they wait until a general offensive can be prepared following the arrival of reinforcements. Throughout these operations P-39Airacobras have continually hit ground positions and troops all along the coast, flying as many as 11 strikes on some days. (Jack McKillop)
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: A USAAF Eleventh Air Force B-24 Liberator flies reconnaissance over Japanese-held Kiska Island but weather precludes the westward continuation of reconnaissance. A scheduled mission of eight B-24s and four B-26 Marauders to Kiska Island is called off due to icing conditions. (Jack McKillop)
CANADA:
Frigate HMCS Cape Breton launched Quebec City, Province of Quebec.
Trawler HMS Miscou arrived Halifax , Nova Scotia.
U.S.A.: Destroyer USS Picking laid down.
Minesweeper USS Buoyant launched.
Destroyer USS Isherwood launched.
Destroyer USS Charles Ausburne commissioned.
Light cruiser USS Santa Fe (CL-60) commissioned. The USN now has 26 light cruisers commissioned.
(Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-181 sank SS Dorington Court and Mount Helmos.
RAF Hudson (Sqn 233/Q) straddled U-263 with four depth charges, causing extensive damage. The boat was at that time heading back to base, having aborted her mission after being severely depth charged four days earlier. (Dave Shirlaw)
"Encircling a prisoner about to be tortured and killed, the orchestra from Janowska, a labor camp in the Ukraine, serenades him with, in Yiddish, "Tango fun toyt" ("Tango of Death").
The tune, composed by Jewish musicians ordered to do so by SS-Untersturmführer Wilhelm Rokita, also was played when the labor details left for work in the morning and when they returned--as well as during the selections of who would live and who would die."
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