Posted on 01/18/2013 4:21:07 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/jan1943/f18jan43.htm
German Tiger Tanks in Tunisia
Monday, January 18, 1943 www.onwar.com
In Tunisia... German Tiger I tanks are used for the first in this theater at Bou Arada. Neither the British nor the American forces have anything comparable.
On the Eastern Front... Red Army clears the supply corridor into Leningrad but it is unable to widen it. In the Caucasus, the Soviets take Cherkessk and Divnoe (70 miles east of Elista).
In Burma... The British 14th Indian Division attacks Japanese positions at Donbaik in the Arakan. The assault is unsuccessful.
In the Aleutian Islands... Two American cruisers and four destroyers bombard Japanese-held Attu Island (January 18-19).
In Morocco... The Casablanca Conference. The Anglo-American strategy discussions continue.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
January 18th, 1943
GERMANY:
U-1003 laid down.
U-845 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
POLAND: German troops start new deportations from the Jewish ghetto.
U.S.S.R.: A supply corridor is pushed through to Leningrad.
Leningrad: The 16-month-long siege of Leningrad began to crack today when Captain Sabatkin of the Leningrad army exchanged the password with Captain Demidov of the relieving force on a corpse-littered field near Schlusselburg on the shore of Lake Ladoga. The formalities over, the two men embraced in a celebration of their victory.
It has taken five days of fierce fighting for the Russians to break the German ring around the city, for the Germans have spent the last year building their siege fortifications with minefields, and a network of concrete pillboxes. The victory is yet another triumph for the meticulous planning of Georgi Zhukov who was made a Marshal of the Soviet Union today, the first Russian field commander of this was to be so honoured.
It is, however, still too early to claim that the suffering of the stoic people of Leningrad is over. The gap that has been opened in the lines round the city remains narrow, and any traffic through it will have to run the gauntlet of the German guns. Nevertheless, Hitler will no longer be able to boast that he will destroy this proud city.
BURMA: Indian troops attack Japanese positions at Donbaik.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: The long awaited US attack on the “Gifu” on Guadalcanal begins. It makes only small gains.
AUSTRALIA: MacDonald, Northern Territory: No. 18 Squadron RAAF (B-25 Mitchell) flies its first mission, a reconnaissance mission. (Jack McKillop)
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Kamsack completed refit Halifax, Nova Scotia. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: US commercial bakers stopped selling sliced bread. Only whole loaves were sold until the end of the war. It comes about to reduce steel consumption for slicing machine repairs. More...
Destroyer escort USS Charles R Greer launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
Secretary of state John McCloy and Geneal de Witt of the Western Defense Command discuss allowing American born Japanese to volunteer and form a combat team. Transcripts. (Stuart Kohn)
"A vast pile of brushes, from women's hairbrushes to men's shaving brushes, attest to the Nazis' desire to rob those they executed of their most personal possessions.
Hair became the raw material to stuff mattresses and weave cloth.
Brushes were sold to consumers in Germany or distributed to soldiers at the front or in hospitals."
"Despite the odds, this committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine was determined to obtain information concerning Jews imprisoned in Polish ghettos.
The Joint Rescue Committee, based in Jerusalem, wanted to send these Jews food parcels.
The members also wanted to help them, should they manage to escape from the Nazis, to obtain immigration certificates to Palestine.
"Early leaders of the committee were Itzhak Gruenbaum (pictured), Moshe Shapira, Eliyahu Dobkin, and Emil Schmorak.
Gruenbaum felt that because the Nazis were so formidable, because the Allies were indifferent to the Jewish plight, and because no significant resources stood behind the committee that nothing the committee did could significantly help the Jews trapped in Nazi Europe.
Instead, Gruenbaum believed they should focus on establishing Palestine as a home for the Jewish survivors after the war.
By 1945 the committee was devoting all of its efforts to establishing a Jewish state in Palestine."
"By far the most important part of the natural crude production is from Rumanian fields, which probably produced 5,500,000 to 6,000,000 tons last year.
"The annual military oil consumption of Germany and her European Axis satellites has been estimated on the basis of 1942 expenditures at about 10,000,000 tons a year, with industrial and civil needs of all of Europe estimated at another 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 tons."
Pretty good estimates.
Current numbers show Germany, Romania and Hungary together produced 61 million tons of oil for the entire war, which may mean 15 million tons per year at its peak.
By stark contrast, the US (833 mt), Soviet Union (111 mt) and UK (91 mt) together produced over a billion tons of oil.
And nearly all the other production numbers reflect similar lopsided disparities.
Indeed, the ideas which strike most strongly here are:
Chronic shortage of fuel was a major problem for the Germans and the Japanese too for that matter. Hence, the German offensive in the summer of 1942 in Southern USSR whose primary objective was the seizure of the Soviet Union’s vast oil fields in the Caucuses and Caspian Sea region-—Hitler was later sidetracked with his obsession of Stalingrad. The Japanese fuel shortage helped trigger their attack on Pearl Harbor and their invasion of Dutch Indonesia. The Germans also pioneered the use of synthetic fuels during WWII to help make up for their lack of oil.
Both the Germans and Japanese were counting on rapid victories and not on prolonged wars. The Germans didn’t really convert to a full-scale war economy until early 1944. They thought they could defeat the USSR in one campaign season, but the space and time limitations should have made it obvious that any fight with the USSR would take at least two years. Von Manstein, in his memoirs, acknowledges this.
One of the main problems with the Axis oil situation was not so much the insufficiency of oil, but rather the logistics. There was enough oil in Indonesia to run the Japanese war machine, and between Romania and synthetic sources, the Germans also had enough. The main problem was that both powers didn’t have the means of getting it to the fighting fronts in sufficent quantities. This was a particular problem for the Japanese. There was not sufficient refinery capacity in Indonesia to process all of the oil. The Japanese had to ship crude to Japan, refine it, and then ship the finished product to the outposts of its far-flung empire. A quick look at the map, and seeing the shipping distances and transit times shows the Japanese fuel delivery problem. The Japanese entered the war with a shortage of oil tankers, and spent most of 1942 cobbling together as many tankers as they could, even converting the factory whaling ships. While they increased their tanker tonnage during the year, even at this early date they are not delivering enough avaition gas to the South Pacific, and are having trouble getting enough flying time for their pilot trainees.
The German fuel problem will manifest itself in the coming summer. The Luftwaffe will finally lose air superiority over the Kursk battlefield, not so much due to aircraft and pilot losses, but rather to a lack of fuel for enough sorties to contest the airspace. There is plenty of fuel to be had. It’s just that the Germans never had the proper logistic support to get it to the front.
Plus, on the Eastern Front, there were large bands of partisans operating behind German lines, whose main task was to sabotage German supply lines.
I have always contended if Hitler had studied Napoleon as carefully as he studied Frederick the Great, he would have never invaded Russia to begin with.
Plus, on the Eastern Front, there were large bands of partisans operating behind German lines, whose main task was to sabotage German supply lines.
I have always contended if Hitler had studied Napoleon as carefully as he studied Frederick the Great, he would have never invaded Russia to begin with.
Based on the post-war memoirs of the German generals, who won the race to write the history of the Russo-German War, for many years the general consensus among historians was that the Germans came within a hair’s breadth of defeating the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, I think those historians were a bit lazy in that they accepted the German memoirs at face value, and did not subject them to a thorough vetting through comparison with the actual German combat records. Since then, a more detailed and objective view is emerging that the Germans never had a chance. This is certainly the view of writers such as Stahel and Glantz. I’m still not completely convinced they are correct, but their works are well-researched, and are based on a balanced examination of German and heretofore unavailable Soviet sources. Their arguments are persuasive. I still believe that had the Germans taken the longer view that a two-year campaign was necessary to defeat the USSR, and planned accordingly, they might have won. I am also of the belief that geopolitically, the Germans had no choice but to attack the USSR, and had to so in 1941.
There is the argument that a more benign policy in the Ukraine could have kept the partisan issues at bay there. However, the problem with alternate theories like this is they require Hitler to not be Hitler and the Germans to not be the Germans. It was a war of racial extermination, and always intended as such. I try to evaluate the alternate theories with the first analysis being whether the theory requires Hitler to not be Hitler and the Germans to not be the Germans.
I also have done EXTENSIVE reading on the subject, have read many memoirs and biographies of German WWII generals, who were of course for the most part among the finest military minds in history. I am also addicted to the Military Channel-—do not watch much of FNC anymore since last November.
And here is my take-—with few exceptions-—nearly EVERY SINGLE German general on the German general staff was opposed to Operation Barbarossa (the Nazi invasion of the USSR). Even the usually Hitler yes man often derided as a lackey-—Field Marshall Keitel was against the idea. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that a three front war was now abount to commence whe you consider that Britain was still standing in the West, and new front had just opened up in the Mediterranean and North Africa.
Look at a map. The USSR was so vast-—thre times the size of the US, 1/8th the world’s landmass 11 time zones-—not to mention the harshest winter climate on the planet. Could Hitler have defeated the USSR? Theoretically I suppose the answer is yes. But three HUGE mistakes occurred at the very beginning of the campaign:
1) Failure to provide winter clothing to the troops.
2) Failure to capture Moscow early on when it was possible.
3) Failure to treat well newly conquered peoples who initially thought the Germans as liberators after years of brutal Communist rule.
The biggest problem was Hitler’s own massive ego and constant strategic mistakes. He had the chance to breakout of the Stalingrad pocket but stubbornly hung on to that ruined city. He called off the Kursk offensive just before Von Manstein was about to score a major breakout....I could go on and on.....The Allies greates secret weapon was Hitler’s micromanaging and strategic blunders. Soon it was the GERMAN GENERALS THEMSELVES who believed Hitler had to go.
"Hey, you! That's right, you stupid Kraut bastards! That's right! Say hello to Ford, and General f@#kin' Motors! You stupid fascist pigs! Look at you! You have horses! What were you thinking? Dragging our asses half way around the world, interrupting our lives... For what, you ignorant, servile scum! What the f@#k are we doing here?"
Hitler's bungles considerably shortened the war.
Possibly the best lines of the whole series. ;-)
I also liked the scene where Nixon correctly identifies a piece of music as Beethoven, not Mozart.
Who could do that today?
There were two historical figures Hitler admired above all else: Frederick the Great and Robert Wagner. I assume Hitler studied them both very intensively. There was even a large portrait of Frederick the Great Hitler possessed until his very last days which was on the wall in his private study in the bunker.
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