Posted on 05/16/2013 5:25:09 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Editorials – 14-16
Road to Victory
War Mobilization
The Poll Tax Issue
Radar
The Guns Catch Up
Apple Blossoms
Topics of the Times
The New York Times Magazine
When Will the War End (Sulzberger) – 18-20
* Don’t miss this installment of Baldwin’s 12-part analysis of the ETO situation. It could have served as the basis for a briefing to American political and military leaders in May 1943 and it serves today as a historically valuable look (in my highly unqualified opinion) at the state of our military on the eve of the war on the European continent. I’ll copy a few highlights below, but just about every paragraph provides something to think about – HJS.
. . .[J]ust as Pearl Harbor reflected the national sense that “it can’t happen here,” so Tunisia has reflected the effects of years of rather easy living and thinking in America.
In one instance a unit of about thirty men bivouacked at night on one of the hill slopes near the front. They woke up in the morning and roundly cursed the “thieving Arabs” because much of their equipment was missing. They were near the enemy, but they had posted no sentry; the young non-com’s excuse was that there were so few of them they wouldn’t get enough sleep if they posted sentries.
The defeats we suffered in Tunisia were tactical defeats of detail. The enemy “got thar fust with the mostest men.” The old “plug-the-gap” strategy of January and February gave way in March and April to the victorious policy of concentration of effort.
Psychologically, we should take to heart the oft-repeated lesson of North Africa and the Pacific that the truth always pays in the long run, that public relations is a very important war weapon, that news must come quickly from every battlefront, and that censorship must be reasonable, not stupid.
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/may1943/f16may43.htm
The British “Dam Busters” Raid
Sunday, May 16, 1943 www.onwar.com
One of the dams breached in the attack [photo at link].
Over Germany... During the night (May 16-17), a specially trained and equipped RAF bomber squadron (No. 617) carries out successful precision bombing raids on the dams on the Mohne and Eder Rivers. A third target, the Sorpe dam, is not attacked. The targets are believed to supply the majority of electricity used in the Ruhr industrial area and a significant quantity of the water. However, 8 of the 19 aircraft are lost and the damage is far less than had been hoped.
In the Aleutian Islands... On Attu, the Japanese are forced to pull back as the Americans continue their attacks near Holtz Bay.
In Occupied Poland... The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The synagogue is blown up. Stroop, the SS commander responsible for putting down the uprising, claims that since the uprising began, on April 19, 14,000 Jews have been killed in the ghetto and another 40,000 have been sent to Treblinka to be killed.
On the Eastern Front... In the Caucasus, the German 17th Army launches counterattacks from its foothold in the Kuban Peninsula. Soviet forces hold.
In Washington... The Trident Conference continues.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
May 16th, 1943 (SUNDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Frigate HMS Plym commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: Wing Commander Guy Penrose Gibson (1918-44) leads RAF squadron 617 in an attack on Ruhr dams. This raid which will become known as the “Dambusters Raid” utilizes specially constructed bombs with special bombing techniques. The dams are on the Möhne and Eder rivers. Two of the 3 dams are bombed. Damage is not as severe as expected.
Gibson is awarded the Victoria Cross for deliberately drawing fire away from his comrades.
NETHERLANDS: The Germans confiscate all wireless sets.
POLAND: The Nazi SS troops in Warsaw blow up the synagogue in the Warsaw Ghetto. Their actions in the Ghetto result in 14,000+ killed and 40,000+ sent to the death camp at Treblinka.
Warsaw: A month after he launched the operation which he reckoned would take a few days only, SS Major-General Stroop has reported to Himmler: “Warsaw Ghetto is no more.” Besides the 14,000 Jews killed in the fighting or sent to the Treblinka death camp, another 42,000 are being deported to labour camps near Lublin.
Stroop rounded off his destruction of the ghetto at 8.15 this evening by blowing up the Thomaebi synagogue. Then he set sat down to prepare his report. Only eight buildings have survived: the police lodgings, quarters for factory guards and a hospital. But he says that the ruins contain “a vast amount of stones and scrap metal which could be useful”. He is having the report illustrated with many photographs, typed on top quality paper and bound in fine leather. Stroop has been promised the Iron Cross, first class, for his achievement.
The remnants of the Jewish resistance, driven from their bunkers by poison gas, still refused to give in. One man attacked the Germans with stones; he was beaten with rifle butts, kicked and left soaked in blood. The bodies of two young women lay in the road, and cats and crows appeared to tear pieces of flesh from their faces. Though Stroop says that the ghetto has been destroyed, small groups of Jews are still in hiding there and some others have escaped through the slime of the sewers to seek refuge in the Christian districts of Warsaw.
One of them wrote in his diary: “Though our hearts are still beating, there will never be a joy of life in them again.”
FINLAND: Thornycroft motor torpedo boat Raju hits an underwater boom obstacle in Koivisto Sound and repair of the old boat is not worth the efforts. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.S.R.: Volga Flotilla: GB “Krasnii Dagestan” - mined close to Gusinii Is., in Stalingrad area (Sergey Anisimov)(69)
German troops launch Operation Gypsy Baron, a three-week drive to capture Soviet partisans.
ITALY: 20 RAF Wellingtons of No. 205 (Heavy Bomber) Group attack the Rome area at night. Eighteen bomb the Lido di Roma airfield dropping 34.6 tons of bombs, one bombed a target of opportunity dropping 2.3 tons of bombs and one drops leaflets. (Jack McKillop)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Submarine HMS Unruly torpedoed and damaged the Italian merchant Nicolo Tommaseo (4573 BRT). (Dave Shirlaw)
NEW GUINEA: Japanese troops in the Salamaua area are reorganised:
Salamaua Defence Force (Maj Komaki), Mubo Defence Force (Lt-Col Maruoka), and Nassau Defence Force (Maj Takamura). [Dexter p 47](Michael Alexander)
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: Japanese forces on Attu retreat to Chichagof Harbor to regroup for a final stand.
Major General Albert E. Brown, Commanding General 7th Infantry Division is relieved and replaced by Major General Eugene M. Landrum. The Southern Landing Force again attacks Jarmin Pass without success however, the Northern Landing Force attacks Moore Ridge and secures a foothold on the northern end thus gaining control of the whole ridge. Realizing that they were vastly outnumbered by the Americans and could be taken from the rear, the Japanese withdraw from Moore Ridge during the night of 16/17 May and take up positions in Chichagof Harbor for a final stand.
The USAAF’s air-ground liaison B-24 Liberator bombs Chichagof Harbor with unobserved results. Another B-24 drops supplies to ground forces while 8 B-24s, 12 B-25 Mitchells, and 12 P-38 Lightnings are dispatched to fly ground support missions; because of the weather, only the P-38s get through and strafe AA guns, installations and barges, scoring several hits. The bombers are redirected to bomb Kiska Island joining two P-40s flying reconnaissance missions over the island.
A large Japanese Naval Force consisting of the battleships HIJMS Musashi, HIJMS Kongo and HIJMS Haruna; the aircraft carrier HIJMS Hiyo; the heavy cruisers HIJMS Tone and HIJMS Chikuma; and five destroyers depart Truk Atoll in the Caroline Islands fro Tokyo for eventual duty in the Aleutian Islands. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: During WW II, the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) produced numerous documents, most commonly known are the Intelligence Bulletins. The Military Intelligence Special Series continues with “The German Rifle Company for Study and Translation.” (William L. Howard)
Minesweeper USS Sentry laid down.
Minesweeper USS Scrimmage launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-228 transferred wounded crewmembers to the milkcow U-461.
U-182 sunk NW of Madeira Islands, in position 33.55N, 20.35W, by depth charges from destroyer USS Mackenzie. 61 dead (all hands lost).
U-463 sunk in the Bay of Biscay in position 45.57N, 11.40W by depth charges from an RAF 58 Sqn Halifax. 57 dead (all hands lost). (Dave Shirlaw)
"Female prisoners work in a factory owned by the AGFA company, one of the many companies that belonged to the I.G. Farben conglomerate.
German industries that supported the Nazi regime's war effort benefited greatly from their access to forced labor.
Hundreds of thousands of people were removed from their homes, relocated to Germany, and forced to work in German factories connected to the war effort."
Interesting article on Afghanistan. The line about the country’s biggest problem being the mullahs probably hasn’t changed much. Thanks for the post.
I too found the Afghanistan article intriguing.
In the middle of the article it mentions the word natives used for strangers was “Ferengi”.
Star Trek Next Generation now makes more sense.
Sulzberger's forecast for the war's end sure got it wrong. He predicted 1944 because Germany would be in about the same position then it was in 1918. But he should have known Hitler and the Nazis regarded 1918 as a sellout and would never surrender until the fatherland was invaded, if then.
Also interesting that Hitler and Goering won't survey the war damage. What a contrast to Churchill and the Royal Family. Goering was such a slimeball.
I concur the Afghanistan article was interesting. I wonder what motivated the reporter to go there?
The Man Who Invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba, and Herbert L. Matthews of The New York Times (annotated Edition)
by Anthony Depalma
Hardcover, 320 Pages, Published 2006
Never did find out what he was doing in Afghanistan.
I get the impression that, after Walter Duranty, Herbert L. Matthews is the most notorious Red on the Times staff. Someone here pointed out his later PR work for Castro when I first posted some of his articles. If you check the index by author on my profile you will see that when I first began this project Matthews was in Spain covering the civil war. He was pro-Red even then. When that gig expired he moved on to Rome. The Fascists threw him out in October 1940 but it didn’t take for some reason and he was back by November. He has been reporting from India since the U.S. got into the war. How he wound up in that relative backwater I don’t know.
From the headlines, Matthews sure was reporting on Spain from the Loyalist point of view. I see that he was the Times’ principal correspondent in Rome for quite a while, a plum assignment. He must have P.O.’d someone to be exiled to India. He may have gone to Afghanistan for a diversion.
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