NAZIS OCCUPY ROME, TAKE MILAN AFTER SIEGE; BRITISH SEIZE TARANTO, ALLIES GAIN AT NAPLES (9/11/43)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 9/11/43 | Milton Bracker, Alexander Werth

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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[colorado tanker]

Ernie Pyle could sure write.

[colorado tanker]

With the Donbas back in Russian hands, there is no question the Russians will be able to produce all the equipment they need to overwhelm the Germans.

The brutality on the Eastern Front never ceases to amaze me.

[fso301]

The p14 photo is interesting in that the caption indicates it was taken somewhere on the Kuban. Almost every caption of that photo I have ever seen has it taken during the battle of Kursk.

[henkster]

Wherever the photo was taken, I’m pretty sure it was NOT in the Kuban. Tigers were a precious resource, and virtually all of them were in “Schwere Panzer Abteilungen” or Heavy Tank Detachments. Some were semi-organic to the Waffen SS Divisions but most of them, numbered 501-505, were temporarily attached to panzer divisions for special purposes in the hottest sectors.

The Kuban never had a Schwere Panzer Abteilung or Waffen SS Panzer Division sent there, as they were all needed in the Ukraine.

[colorado tanker]

Smuts, and to some degree Churchill, are looking at the fact that the Germans are disintegrating on the Eastern Front and are thinking about what a post-war Europe will look like. They are very concerned that the Sovs will become dominant in Eastern Europe. They have already made clear they do not intend to give back the part of Poland they got in the deal with the Nazis. I suppose to some extent I am reacting the same way from hindsight. It would be very useful from a geopolitical viewpoint to find some way to get Anglo-American troops in the region.

That said, thinking about it from every angle I can come with, I can't see a viable Anglo-American military option in the Balkans. Everything not engaged in the Italy campaign is going to Britain for Overlord and it is needed there.

You make an excellent point about the geography. Behind the prosperous Dalmatian Coast lies a mountain barrier extending from Albania to Slovenia. For centuries the boundary between Austria and Turkey left Croatia and Slovenia in Austria, with Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania in the Turkish Empire. Austria had the good bits, the Dalmatian Coast and fertile interior, with Turkey occupying most of the the mountainous bits. In the pre-industrial Mediterranean mountainous regions were decidedly less prosperous than the coasts and plains. If we sent troops across from Italy, they would have to fight through the mountain barrier to get to the Sava, Drava and Danube valleys and the plains. Just as it is ideal terrain for the partisans to play hide and seek with the Germans, it would be ideal defensive terrain for the Germans. It would be as hard a slog as climbing the Italian boot will become for us.

I certainly would not have pursued a Balkan operation in place of Overlord, as Smuts suggested. I don't think he is thinking that through. We need boots on the ground in France, the Low Countries and Germany to keep them from coming under Russian influence. After the war there were powerful Communist parties in place in France and Italy. I would hate to think what would have happened if Russia had occupied all or the lion's share of Germany.

We didn't have the manpower to do both Overlord and a Balkan operation, unless Roosevelt wants to mobilize another 20-30 divisions, which he does not. The Brits are tapped out.

I reviewed the history of Greece and interestingly, as the Germans were pushed farther into Eastern Europe they pulled out of Greece in late 1944, uncharacteristic for Hitler. Churchill finally got his heart's desire when the Brits rushed troops to Athens.

So, I've reluctantly concluded there was just no way to get our troops into the Balkans and take some of the countries the Russians would later turn communist.

[Stonewall Jackson]

The only Brooklyn-class cruiser to be lost in combat was the Argentinian General Belgrano, formerly the Phoenix, which was torpedoed and sunk by the British submarine Conqueror during the Falklands War.