Posted on 02/02/2013 4:53:34 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/feb1943/f02feb43.htm
Last German troops surrender at Stalingrad
Tuesday, February 2, 1943 www.onwar.com
Soviet flag waved over Stalingrad [photo at link]
On the Eastern Front... The northern pocket of the German 6th Army, trapped at Stalingrad, surrenders. In total, the Red Army has taken about 90,000 prisoners. Later, the Soviets announce that 147,000 Axis, and 47,000 Soviet corpses have been removed from Stalingrad. Furthermore, an estimated 40,000 were evacuated during the air supply operations conducted by the Germans, during the siege. The Luftwaffe lost about 500 transports. Only 5000 Germans taken prisoner survive to return to Germany after the war; the last to return arrives in 1955. The Soviet success is generally attributed to General Chuikov’s leadership and tactical innovation.
In the Solomon Islands... On Guadalcanal the American coastal advance crosses the Bonegi River.
In the Mediterranean... The British submarine Turbulent sinks an Italian tanker near Palermo. The Italian naval squadron based in Sicily consequently remains short of fuel.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
February 2nd, 1943
UNITED KINGDOM: Submarine HMS Usurper commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: U-795 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
USSR: The last German troops at Stalingrad surrender.
The Russians are advancing to the rail link between Nikopol and Axis territory. (Gene Hanson)
AUSTRALIA: The 319th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) USAAF is transferred to Darwin and placed under the operational control of the RAAF Command. (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
At 0304, US Liberty ship Jeremiah Van Rensselaer in station #45 (last ship in the extreme port column) of Convoy HX-224 was torpedoed by U-456. The ship had been in station #11, but had performed poorly keeping station and kept her station about once in seven nights, she managed to catch up in the daytime and consequently her position was changed.
Two torpedoes struck on the port side in the #1 hold. The explosion created a hole 8 feet by 30 feet, blew the hatch cover off, spewed cargo overboard and started a fire. A short time later, a third torpedo struck on the port side at #4 hatch and blew a truck standing on deck into the water and also started a small fire. The engines were secured and some of the eight officers, 34 crewmen, 28 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in, one 3in and eight 20mm guns) and one passenger abandoned ship. Panicking, they tried to launch three lifeboats, but two capsized in the rough seas. Eight men got away in a boat and others jumped overboard and swam to three rafts, but the harsh weather and cold water caused the most men to die from exposure. Only one officer, six crewmen and 17 armed guards survived. 23 survivors and three bodies were picked up after five hours by the British rescue ship Accrington and landed at Gourock. A boarding party from USCGC Ingham later boarded the ship and noted that she could have been saved, but the watch below left the boilers fire lit, which burned the boilers out. The vessel was scuttled by gunfire at 1300. The boarding party also found one man whom never left the ship and took him to the escort vessel. One week later two bodies were recovered from a raft by the French corvette Lobelia. (Dave Shirlaw)
"German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus (left), accompanied by two staff officers, walks toward Red Army headquarters to sign the formal surrender of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, Russia.
Paulus had begged Hitler to allow a retreat before it became too late, but the Führer refused to give up, leaving the exhausted and starving army surrounded by Soviet forces.
"Fortress Stalingrad," as Hitler called the troops, could not withstand the fierce winter and the lack of supplies and reinforcements.
Against orders and in the hopes of saving his remaining men, Paulus surrendered on February 3.
While he and his senior staff survived, most of his men did not."
"Within the walls of Auschwitz and other camps, humans replaced animals as subjects for experimentation.
Unscrupulous surgeries were performed on inmates, both healthy and ill, and subjects were exposed to a variety of chemicals and viruses.
Otherwise healthy prisoners were injected with typhus, tuberculosis, and malaria.
This photo shows the results of a substance coded B/F, seven days after injection into a prisoner's forearm."
"Jewish nurses and physicians struggled to care for the ill and injured within the ghettos.
Pictured here are patients and family members in the Kovno (Lithuania) Ghetto.
As trained medical personnel fell victim to disease and starvation, the ghetto's leadership sought to prepare new people to take their places.
Secret medical training was offered in Warsaw and, most likely, Kovno."
From Wiki she's presumed sunk next month:
On 23 February 1943 Turbulent sailed from Algiers for a patrol in the Tyrrhenian Sea. On 1 March she attacked and sank the Italian steam-ship Vincenz. On the 11th she is known to have attacked the mail ship Mafalda. The following morning the anti-submarine trawler Teti II sighted the periscope and conning tower of a submarine and attacked, it is believed, without success. Turbulent did not respond to any further messages and did not return when expected on 23 March. It is thought that Turbulent fell victim to a mine off Maddalena, Sardinia. The wreck has never been found and any reference to its discovery is incorrect.
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