Posted on 09/27/2013 4:51:34 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring
Battle at Shore – 2-3
Tornado and Mud Defied by Russians – 3
Red Army Regains Many Vital Areas – 3
Russia is Forcing Issues as We Delay Post-War Plan (Reston) – 4
Cripps Sees Peril in Spurning Soviet (Middleton) – 4-5
Troops Lack Hate, Pugh Finds in Tour – 5
War News Summarized – 5
British Peril Base (Bracker) – 6-7
Signing French Lend-Lease Agreement (photo) – 7
Fortresses Raid Far Into France to Bomb at Champagne and Reims – 8
Allies Encircling Finschhafen Base – 8
The War in the Islands: It Stretches from the Gilberts to the Aleutians (photos) – 9-10
Aircraft Carrier Goes Down Ways – 11
Another ‘Floating Airport’ Head Out to the Wars (photo) – 11
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on Fighting in Various Zones – 13-14
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/sep1943/f27sep43.htm
British advance is unopposed
Monday, September 27, 1943 www.onwar.com
Canadian troops approach Melfi [photo at link]
In Italy... Elements of the British 8th Army enter Foggia and occupy the airfields without a fight. Melfi is captured by Canadian units attached to the British 8th Army.
In the Mediterranean... German forces take control of the island of Corfu after eliminating the Italian garrison.
On the Eastern Front... Red Army forces enter the suburbs of Dnepropetrovsk. In the Caucasus, Temryuk, the last port held by the German 17th Army falls to Soviet forces as the evacuation of the 17th Army continues.
In New Guinea... There are Allied air attack on Japanese airfields around Wewak.
In Occupied Italy... There is a popular uprising begins in Naples, fighing the German occupation.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/frame.htm
September 27th, 1943 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: STRATEGIC OPERATIONS: The US Eighth Air Force’s VIII Bomber Command flies 2 missions.
- Mission 104: The port of Emden, Germany is the target. In the first pathfinder (PFF) mission, 2 of 3 H2S equipped pathfinder B-17s lead the mission.
(1) 246 B-17s hit the Emden industrial area and targets of opportunity at 0958-1008 hours; they claim 32-7-24 Luftwaffe aircraft; 7 B-17s are lost; escort is provided by 262 P-47 Thunderbolts which claim 21-2-6 Luftwaffe aircraft; 1 P-47 is lost.
(2) 24 B-24s fly a diversion.
- Mission 105: 4 B-17s hit Hannover at 2208-2217 hours in a night raid with the RAF; 1 B-17 is lost.
TACTICAL OPERATIONS: The US Eighth Air Force’s VIII Air Support Command flies Missions 73 and 74 against 2 airfields in France.
(1) 65 72 B-26B Marauders hit Tille Airfield at Beauvais at 1044-1045 hours; they claim 4-6-4 Luftwaffe aircraft.
(2) 68 of 72 B-26’s hit Conches Airfield at 1729 hours; 1 B-26 is lost.
The escort aircraft carrier (CVE) Jamaica (CVE-43) is transferred to Britain under Lend-Lease. She is the 25th CVE transferred to the Royal Navy and is renamed HMS Shah (D 21). The ship is returned to the USN on 6 December 1945.
Frigates HMS Montserrat and Tobago launched.
Escort carrier HMS Smiter launched.
NETHERLANDS: Seven RAF Bomber Command aircraft lay mines in the Frisian Islands.
FRANCE: Paris: PPF member Dr. Paul Guérin, président des groupements corporatifs français is assassinated.
VICHY FRANCE: Marshal Philippe Pétain’s revises the Constitutional Act No. 4 (which sets up a seven-man regency council in event of Pétain’s inability to function as head of state). (Glenn Stenberg)
GERMANY: Allied air raid on Emden. (Glenn Stenberg)
During the night of 27/28 September, RAF Bomber Command sends 678 aircraft, 312 Lancasters, 231 Halifaxes, 111 Stirlings, 24 Wellingtons and USAAF Eighth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress to bomb Hannover; 38 aircraft are lost, 17 Halifaxes, ten Lancasters, ten Stirlings and a Wellington, 5.6 per cent of the force, and one B-17 also lost. The use by the Pathfinders of faulty forecast winds again saved the centre of Hannover. The bombing is very concentrated but fell on an area 5 miles (8 kilometers) north of the city centre. No details are available from Germany but RAF photographic evidence showed that most of the bombs fell in open country or villages north of the city. Twenty one Lancasters and six Mosquitos carried out a diversionary raid on Brunswick which is successful in drawing off some night fighters; 218 people are killed in Brunswick, 51 Germans and 167 foreigners. One Lancaster is lost. Mosquitos crews flew two missions: five Mosquitos on another diversion to Emden and three on Oboe tests to Aachen. Ten aircraft layed mines in the Kattegat, a bay of the North Sea bounded by Denmark and Sweden.
U.S.S.R.: The Soviets reach the suburbs of Dnepropetrovsk. In the Kuban, the Russians occupy the north bank of the Kuban River and capture Temryuk, their last port reducing the German’s bridgehead to a narrow strip.
ITALY: Foggia greets the advance units of the British 8th Army. The airfields are now in Allied hands. The main body of the 8th Army is still not ready. Canadian units capture Melfi, Italy.
In the U.S. Fifth Army’s VI Corps area, 3d Infantry Divsion reaches Highway 7 and is threatening Avellino.
Marshal of Italy Pietro Duke Badoglio, the Prime Minister of the new government, receives terms of complete instrument of surrender.
The people in Naples begin an insurrection against Germans, which will last through to the end of the month. (Glenn Stenberg)
Weather almost halts US Twelfth Air Force operations; XII Air Support Command fighters strafe Viterbo Airfield and Bracciano seaplane base, bomb a road junction at San Servero, and strafe a locomotive and the train station; other Northwestern Tactical Air Force aircraft hit trucks in the Benevento area.
GREECE: The Germans take full control of the island of Corfu having wiped out the Italian garrison.
Destroyer HMS Intrepid is damaged by two air raids on the port of Leros and abandoned. Considered to be beyond repair, she capsizes. There are 15 casualties. (Alex Gordon)(108)
In the Ionian Sea, the 1,092 ton Greek ship SS Ardena is sunk by a mine off Argosoli, Kefalonia Island, Ionian Islands, laid by the Italian ship Berletta three months earlier. SS Ardena had been bombed and sunk in June 1941 by the Luftwaffe during the invasion of Greece. Raised and repaired by the German Kriegsmarina, she is sunk again today. The ship is carrying 840 Italian POWs; 720 of them are killed.
CHINA: Mao Tse-min (Mao Tse-tung’s brother) and the Communist party founder Chen Tan-chi are executed by order of Chiang Kai-shek.
SINGAPORE: British and Australian commando forces led by Lieutenant Colonel Lyons, Gordon Highlanders, mounted Operation Jaywick, a canoe attack on Japanese shipping in Singapore harbour. Their limpet mines sank three ships and left several others damaged. The assault team escaped in their fishing boat, HMAS Krait, which has been preserved as part of the Australian War Memorial collection.
PACIFIC OCEAN: Submarine USS Pompano sunk while patrolling off the coasts of Hokkaido and Honshu; probably lost to Japanese mines.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: 27 B-24s, 20+ P-40s and P-39Airacobras of the US Thirteenth Air Force, and several USMC F4U Corsairs to pound the Kahili area on Bougainville Island. P-39s over Choiseul Island strafe (and explode) 3 barges off Wogai Point, and strafe 2 others off Bambatana, leaving 1 ablaze.
NEW GUINEA: 117 B-24s and B-25s, escorted by 129 P-38s and P-40s, attack airfields and shipping in the Wewak area; about 40 aircraft are destroyed on the ground and 8 are claimed shot down in combat; the bombers sink a transport and 4 cargo ships; Finschhafen is bombed twice during the day.
U.S.A.: Destroyer escorts USS Howard D Crow and Neunzer commissioned.
Escort carrier USS Savo Island laid down.
Submarine USS Scabbardfish laid down.
Frigates USS Rockford, Woonsocket and Dearborn launched.
BRAZIL: The beginning of airship (blimp) operations in the South Atlantic is marked by the arrival of the nonrigid airship K-84, of Blimp Squadron Forty One (ZP-41) at Fortaleza.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Two German submarines are sunk:
- U-161 is sunk in the South Atlantic near Bahia, Brazil, in position 12.30S, 35.35W, by depth charges from a USN PBM-3 Mariner of Patrol Squadron Seventy Four (VP-74) based at Natal, Brazil. All 53 hands on the U-boat were lost; 2 crewmen in the PBM are wounded by AA fire from the U-boat.
- U-221 shoots down an RAF Handley Page Halifax aircraft (Sqdn. 58/B) but is sunk southwest of Ireland, in approximate position 47.00N, 18.00W, by depth charges from the same aircraft, an RAF Halifax Mk II of No 58 Squadron based at Holmsley South, Hampshire, England. All 50 hands on the U-boat are lost.
A Cruiser converted to a Carrier...pretty remarkable really..
As always thank you for doing this, it has become a morning ritual to check your latest installment. I thought I was a bit of an amateur WWII historian but this has improved my knowledge immensely..
I was randomly curious about that Halifax that sank U221. I googled around and found this:
http://www.winkton.net/fonfa%20pages/11%20days%20in%20a%20dinghy.htm
The bomber only took one hit but it caught fire and went down. Two of the crew drowned in the crash and the other 6 spent 11 days in their raft before being rescued.
The Lexington was a Battleship turned AC. For the longest times it still carried heavy guns.
Welcome to Free Republic University. If you like I can give you a free almost-two-year promotional subscription so you can have the threads delivered daily to your FR mailbox.
Homer
The Russians are approaching the Pripet Marshes. I should think that would play havoc with German lateral communications.
Like many geographical featuers, the Pripet will cut both ways. German lateral communications will be difficult between Army Groups Center and South. On the other hand, the Pripet forms a natural barrier with a few easily blocked passages. Large troop movements are not possible through there. So the Germans can basically save troops along that sector of their front by not having to post them there.
The Germans are going to fight like hell to protect the lateral railway running through Vitebsk, Mogilev, Orsha & Bobruisk on the west bank of the upper Dnieper. This line is very important for supply within Army Group Center, even if the line to Army Group South is cut south of Bobruisk. The Germans will hold the line just east of the Dnieper through the winter, but it will be part of a very large bulge into the front next summer. And that will be a very tempting target for the Soviets.
Bump.
I remember playing a board game (that dates me) simulating the German invasion of Russia. The Marshes played prominently for whoever was on defense.
OK; what was the board game?
I still have several of them from SPI.
Moscow Campaign
Kursk
Destruction of Army Group Center
Ardennes Offensive
Panzerarmee Africa
Sinai
East is Red
NATO
Invasion America (yes, when Carter was prez, that’s where we thought we were headed).
I still have the Avalon Hill France 1940 and 1914.
I thought about doing a set up of the Kursk game with day-by-day snapshots, but Glantz’ maps were much better.
No.
For the longest times it still carried heavy guns.
No, again.
CV 2 Started its life as CC 1, a Battle Cruiser, not a BB. As for guns, it had eight 8 inch guns. There were 6 ships in the class; one other was completed as a carrier, the others were either not laid down or scrapped per the Washington Naval treaty while partially built.
CV 16 (launched September, 1942) was built as a carrier, and had a dozen 5 inch guns as its heaviest.
Speaking of cruiser hulls, my father worked on a cruiser hull being finished as a carrier at Camden before the Army called him up. But I recall these were light cruisers converted to CVLs.
We played a lot of Avalon Hill in those days. I believe I was thinking of Stalingrad. Not the most complex of the genre.
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