Posted on 02/09/2013 5:30:05 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate
Main Nazi Line Cut – 2-3
All of Stalingrad Ruined by Battles (Shapiro) – 3
Italian Harbor Hit (Parr, Middleton) – 4
Many 2-Ton Bombs Blast U-Boat Base (Bracker) – 5
American Reporters in Britain Take Up High Altitude Flying (Post) * – 5-6
French Capture Height in Tunisia – 6
Krueger is In Line for New Command – 6
60 Tokyo Bombers Strike at Kweilin – 7
War News Summarized – 7
Australians in Final Assault that Took Buna (photos) – 8
Town is Wiped Out by Allied Bombers – 9
Religious Centers for A.E.F. Urged – 9
Navy Plane Hops Andes on Malaria Mission to Fight Colombian Outbreak Fatal to 5,000 (by Sgt. Chester D. Palmer, Jr., first-time contributor) – 9
Foe Busy in Pacific (by Hanson W. Baldwin) – 10
Turkey is Inclined to Side of Allies (by Harold Callender) – 10
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on Fighting in Various Zones – 11-12
*Sadly, this is Robert P. Post’s final article.
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/feb1943/f09feb43.htm
US captures Guadalcanal, Japanese escape
Tuesday, February 9, 1943 www.onwar.com
Japanese prisoners left after the evacuation of Guadalcanal [photo at link]
In the Solomon Islands... The US 161st and 132nd Regiments link up at Tenaro, too late to prevent the Japanese evacuation. The Japanese have lost 10,000 killed and the Americans have lost 1600 killed. Losses in ships and planes have been about equal. Guadalcanal has be a strategic defeat for the Japanese.
On the Eastern Front... Soviet forces capture Belgorod and the town of Shebekino to the southeast.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
February 9th, 1943
U.S.S.R.: The Red Army liberates Bielograd.
Polar Fleet and White Sea Flotilla: HS “Hydrolog” - lost in a storm, in Kolskii Gulf (Sergey Anisimov)(69)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Flower class corvette HMS Erica is sunk in a minefield laid by submarine HMS Rorqual in July 1942(?), but whose existence had not been plotted! Fortunately, there are no casualties, the entire 73 man crew being rescued by HMS Southern Maid. Location: between Beghazi and Derna at 32 48N 21 01E. (Alex Gordon)(108)
Submarine HMS Unbending sinks Italian minelayer Eritrea (2517 BRT) east of Monopoli, Italy.
Italian submarine Malachite torpedoed and sunk near Cape Spartivento, Sardinia, Italy in position 38.42N, 08.52E by the submarine HNLMS Dolfijn. (Dave Shirlaw)
SOLOMON ISLANDS: 1st Battalion of the US Armies 164th Regiment meets a patrol from the 2nd Battalion of the US Army’s 132nd Regiment at the village of Tenaro, on the western end of Guadalcanal about 1650 in the afternoon. These two units of the Americal Division have confirmed that organized Japanese resistance on Guadalcanal has ended.
General AA Patch, USA radios: “Total and complete defeat of Japanese forces on Guadalcanal effected 1625 today. ... Tokyo Express no longer has a terminus on Guadalcanal.”
Japanese stragglers on Guadalcanal will continue. The last known survivor will surrender in 1947.
AUSTRALIA: Submarine USS Gar departed Fremantle for her sixth war patrol. (Dave Shirlaw)
PACIFIC OCEAN: Submarine USS Tarpon torpedoes and sinks the Japanese troop transport Tatsuta Maru (16975 BRT) some 42 miles east of Mikura Jima in position 33.45N, 140.25E. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: Washington: As a step towards a second front in Europe, a minimum working week of 48 hours was decreed today by President Roosevelt, but it will apply only in 32 “labour shortage areas”. Wages and prices are also being kept down by government order.
Submarine rescue vessel USS Penguin laid down.
USS SC-1285 laid down.
Destroyer USS Smalley laid down
Net tender USS Stagbush laid down.
Destroyer USS Haggard launched.
USS YMS-348 launched.
Destroyer USS John Rodgers commissioned.
USS SC-727 commissioned.
(Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Twenty U-boats have launched a sustained attack on a slow-moving Atlantic convoy, SC-118, over the last five days. Thirteen merchant ships have been sunk from the original 63, despite the presence of ten escort vessels and long-range air cover. Three more U-boats were sunk and two more are believed to have been seriously damaged in a battle where the long winter nights helped protect the U-boats from Allied aircraft. Admiral Dönitz has concentrated a large force near the “black gap” which Allied aircraft cannot reach, off the coast of Greenland.
He should have gotten the Bronze Star with V device for these actions.
I predict Kursk will see some more fighting before the year is out.
Page 10, “Turkey is inclined to side with Allies”.
The Turks are playing the odds after momentum shifts and the Soviets take the lead at half-time.
Also, the bottom of page 8, the 67th annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, at MSG, Tickets for two-day event are $1.65. Those dog show tickets are around $25-$90/day now.
“Japanese stragglers on Guadalcanal will continue. The last known survivor will surrender in 1947”
I remember watching the evening news in the early 70’s when the lead story was about a holdout Japanese solider in the Philippines finally “surrendering”.
Interesting bulge starting to appear in the German lines around Kursk. I wonder if they will try to eliminate that salient some day.
I liked reading the list of promoted generals to see if I recognized any of them. Only three caught my eye:
Macon will command 83rd Infantry Division, which will race the 2nd Armored to the Elbe in the dash across Germany in March-April 1945.
Walter Lauer will command the 99th Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge (and not capably by many accounts). It was a green division in its first combat, and had it not been paired with the veteran 2nd Infantry, it would likely have fared as badly as its neighbor, the 106th.
Norman Cota will be 2nd in command of 29th Infantry Division on D-Day (he was presumably played by Robert Mitchum in “The Longest Day”). He later commanded 28th Division when it was successively mauled in the Hurtgen Forest, sent to the Ardennes to rest, and mauled again in the Battle of the Bulge.
The name Walter Krueger means nothing to you? ;-)
Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov - “It takes a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army.”
Hurtgen Forest was a disaster. It was not a necessary fight and Cota’s execution was poor.
I knew about Krueger. I didn’t mention him because the article was about him. I was more interested in the list of “other” generals. It’s kind of like reading the credits for an old movie to spot actors in minor roles who later become famous.
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