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.
Interesting article on Afghanistan. The line about the country’s biggest problem being the mullahs probably hasn’t changed much. Thanks for the post.