Posted on 11/08/2013 4:28:47 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/nov1943/f08nov43.htm
Allied attacks held by German defense
Monday, November 8, 1943 www.onwar.com
In Italy... The US 5th Army continues its assault on the German-held Reinhard Line without decisive results. To the east, left flank elements of the British 8th Army reach the Sangro River.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/month/thismonth/08.htm
November 8th, 1943 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The decision had been taken today to form the No. 100 Group of the RAF. Its role, under Bomber Command, will be to wage the radio counter-measures war against the German air defences and so reduce bomber casualties. Under Air Vice-Marshal E. B. Addison’s command, it will be located at airfields in northern Norfolk, its squadrons being mainly equipped with Halifaxes and Mosquitoes.
Frigate HMS Good Hope laid down.
Frigate HMS Cotton commissioned.
Escort carrier HMS Ranee commissioned.
FRANCE: The USAAF Eighth Air Force’s VIII Bomber Command flies Mission 125: Two B-17 Flying Fortresses drop 312,000 leaflets over Paris at 0038-0042 hours.
GERMANY: Munich: Hitler visited Munich for his annual Beerkellar speech and promised the German people that he would retaliate for the “terror bombing” of the Reich by Britain. “Even if for the present we cannot reach America,” he said, “thank God that at least one country is near enough for us to tackle, and on that country we are going to concentrate. The hundreds of thousands of our bombed-out people will become the advance guard of revenge.” He appealed to the German people not to lose their nerve and crack. He denounced “scoundrels” who wished for peace.
During the night of 8/9 November, Oboe equipped RAF Bomber Command Mosquitos bomb two targets: three each hit Cologne and the Vereinigte Stahl steel factory at Duisburg.
U-1230 launched.
U-721 commissioned.
ITALY: The battles in the US 5th Army sector continue with no success on either side. The British 8th Army reaches the Sangro River high up in the hills.
British General Harold Alexander, Commander in Chief 15th Army Group, orders the U.S. Fifth Army to plan for an amphibious operation on the west coast.
In the U.S. Fifth Army’s British X Corps area, the 56th Division withstands strong counterattacks at Calabritto and seizes a hill to the northeast. In the U.S. VI Corps area, the 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3d Infantry Division is still unable to scale Mt. la Difensa, but the 3d Battalion of 15th Infantry Regiment takes Hill 253 and the 3d Battalion of 30th Infantry Regiment reaches the top of Mt. Rotondo. The 45th Infantry Division continues to fight for the mountains north of Venafro and Pozzilli. The 3d Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment, opens an assault on the hills between Pozzilli and Filignano. The 34th Infantry Division’s Task Force A takes Montaquila.
In the British Eighth Army’s V Corps area, the 78th Division gains the heights overlooking the Sangro River from its mouth to Paglieta.
Weather cancels all XII Air Support Command missions except fighter patrols. Northwest African Tactical Bomber Force aircraft and RAF Desert Air Force fighters fly only six missions, hitting gun positions along the battleline, vehicles west of the Sangro River, and trains at Civitanova and Pescara.
Eighty USAAF Fifteenth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses bomb the Turin ball bearing factory, marshalling yard, and nearby motor and aircraft engine works with the loss of one aircraft. P-38 Lightnings provide escort as far north as Imperia.
During the night of 8/9 November, 12 RAF aircraft of No. 205 (Heavy Bomber) Group bomb the railroad bridge at Ombrone.
CHINA: Two USAAF Fourteenth Air Force B-25 Mitchells bomb Kiungshan Airfield, scoring direct hits on two hangars and six P-40s attack Hsiangyangchiao bridge, causing little damage.
BURMA: Five USAAF Tenth Air Force B-24 Liberators lay mines in the Rangoon River during the night of 8/9 November.
NEW GUINEA: USAAF Fifth Air Force B-24 Liberators hit Utarom (Kaimana) Aerodrome.
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: USAAF Fifth Air Force B-24 Liberators on armed reconnaissance bomb Garowe Island in the Vitu Islands.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: Major Gen Alexander Vandegrift, Commanding General I Marine Amphibious Corps pending arrival of Major General Roy S. Geiger, reaches Bougainville and takes command of operations there and on the Treasury Islands.
Advance elements of the 37th Infantry Division, Regimental Combat Team 148, also arrive to take over the left flank of the beachhead and are attached to 3d Marine Division. The Battle of Koromokina Lagoon ends as the 1st Battalion of the 21st Marine Regiment, after extremely effective preparatory fire, attacks and eliminates subdued remnants of the Japanese counterlanding force.
On Bougainville Island, 22 USAAF Thirteenth Air Force B-24 Liberators bomb Bonis Airfield on the northern tip of the island. Six B-25 Mitchells hit targets of opportunity at the month of the Laruma River and northwest of Torokina while six others bomb Kieta on the west coast.
Japanese Navy aircraft, 26 “Val” dive bombers (Aichi D3A, Navy Type Carrier Bombers) and 71 “Zeke” fighters (Mitsubishi A6M, Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighters) attack U.S. ships off Cape Torokina, Bougainville, at 1200 hours damaging light cruiser USS Birmingham (CL-62) and two attack transports USS Fuller (APA-7) and USS President Jackson. USAAF Thirteenth Air Force P-38 Lightnings and P-40s shoot down eight “Vals” and seven “Zekes” between 1200 and 1230 hours.
CANADA: Corvette HMCS Beauharnois laid down.
U.S.A.: Destroyer escorts USS Abercrombie, Coates, Frybarger, Oberrender, Sargent Bay, Vandivier, Wagner laid down.
Escort carrier HMS Puncher launched Tacoma.
Destroyer escorts USS Howard F Clark and Silverstein launched.
Escort carrier USS Kitkun Bay launched.
Destroyer escorts USS Reynolds and Manlove commissioned.
The USN escort aircraft carrier Niantic (CVE-46) is transferred to the British Royal Navy under Lend-Lease and commissioned HMS Ranee (D 03). This is the 29th CVE transferred to the British under Lend-Lease. She is returned to the USN on 21 November 1946.
I believe that FDR wanted Marshall to be the European theater commander, the “Pershing of this war.” Marshall preferred to be Chief of Staff.
My understanding is it was the other way around. Marshall was dying to command Overlord but FDR saw him as irreplaceable in Washington. Besides, If Roosevelt wanted him to command the invasion I think he would have gotten his way.
The rationing article was interesting....that would never work today with our morals and mindset...its all me me me now...it will all be black market and corrupt....
"Driven by the urgency to document the inhumanity of the Nazi attack on the Jews of Warsaw, Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum (pictured, left) initiated an effort to collect and preserve a documentary record of life within the walls of the ghetto.
Under his leadership, a small group of writers, journalists, teachers, and students of history formed Oneg Shabbat (Sabbath Delight).
"This underground operation, code-named after the group's clandestine meetings on the Sabbath, created a secret archive chronicling the Jewish experience.
Ringelblum's team encouraged the writing of memoirs and diaries.
It collected underground materials such as ghetto newspapers, posters, announcements, photographs, and reports and statistics on the ghetto.
The team also recorded testimonials of refugees arriving in Warsaw from other ghettos and camps.
Ringelblum himself kept a diary of events. "Oneg Shabbat archivists attempted to transmit documentary evidence to the West, although they stored most archival materials in three sealed milk cans, buried in separate locations.
One can was discovered in 1946, another in 1950.
The third, reportedly containing information on the resistance, has still not been found.
Most members of the organization did not survive the deportations of 1942.
Ringelblum hid in non-Jewish Warsaw until arrested on March 7, 1944, whereupon he and his family were executed."
"A scale model of crematorium II at Auschwitz-Birkenau, built and sculpted in 1991 by artist Mieczyslaw Stobierski, depicts the processing of victims.
Individuals responsible for removing the bodies from the gas chambers, transporting them to the ovens, and burning the corpses were known as Sonderkommandos.
Those selected for these ghastly tasks were given extra rations and were treated better than the average inmate.
Every three or four months, the Sonderkommandos were sent to the gas chambers and processed precisely like the thousands of victims whom they had personally handled."
"Karl Lowenstein, a Jew, was the head of the ghetto guard in Theresienstadt, the "model camp" near Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Lowenstein enjoyed considerable power within the camp as the commander of some 400 young men.
He clashed frequently with the ghetto's council over the privileges accorded to him and his men.
Ultimately, Lowenstein's abuse of power led to his dismissal and imprisonment by the Nazi camp administration."
"The "Jewish Army," a French partisan group, operated from 1942 to 1944.
The group smuggled French Jews into neutral Spain, procured money to aid Jews in hiding, and participated in 1944 uprisings in Paris, Toulouse, and Lyon."
"Bernard Lichtenberg, the provost of St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin, was one of the few German clergymen to speak out against the Nazi regime.
He joined Archbishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Münster in opposing the "euthanasia" measures and openly prayed for the well- being of Jews.
Arrested by the Gestapo, Lichtenberg boldly proclaimed that he wished to join the Jews who had been deported.
His two years of imprisonment ruined his health, but that did not deter the Nazis from sending him to Dachau after his release from prison."
"U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signs the UNRRA agreement in November 1943.
The UNRRA was the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency.
The agency was sponsored by the Allies but, during its five-year life span, was funded mostly by money from the United States.
Headed by former New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, the UNRRA was of great help to non-Jews and, secondarily, to Jews living in displaced-persons camps."
That sounds like a "problem" for Democrats -- after all, lower crime means fewer government employees needed to control it.
What do you bet they will come up with "solutions" to their "problem" of a crime rate that's way too low to make Democrats happy? </sarc>
But who would ever vote for such people?
Oh, wait, what just happened in NYC?
I cannot remember where I read that. An interesting topic to research.
A few random thoughts of the day:
The Soviets claim to have captured all of the equipment of the German 175th Artillery Regiment. I tried doing some research on this, but so far couldn’t find much verification. All I did find is that 175th Artillery was the organic artillery component of German 75th Infantry Division, attached to VII Corps of IV Panzer Army. This would have placed it in the Kiev area. The most current “Order of Battle” for German Army Group South I could find is from October 3, about a month old:
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/CGSC/CARL/nafziger/943GJAB.pdf
If you take the time to scan it, you can see that a lot of German divisions, even by the time they were trying to initially hold the Dneiper, had already been mangled into unidentifiable “kampfgruppen.”
Why is this important? Because of the way the Germans fought in the east. It was pretty typical of a German infantry division’s line regiments to get ground down in constant combat, and the divison reduced to a “kampfgruppe” status. However, the artillery regiment remained more or less intact, and would provide division-level fire support for what was left. Also, when the divison was pulled out of the line for reorganization, they would rebuild the division around the surviving artillery regiment. So if the Soviets claim to have captured all of the arms and equipment of an entire artillery regiment, you can pretty much assume that the division is now just a pin on Hitler’s map, and really no longer exists. The Soviets are mentioning this because they didn’t get to accomplish this too often.
**Next topic**
I like the quality of the NYT map of Italy. You can see a line of hills just behind the current front line; looks like a good natural defensive position. If I were the Germans, I would look to make that the main line of defense, and have as it’s southern anchor that really large hill mass just north of the town of Cassino. I wonder if they see the same thing....
***Next topic***
Baldwin is calling out the Navy Bureau of Ordnance. He doesn’t know how right he is, but he is attacking them more for mines than torpedoes, and he’s a bit late. The American submarine torpedo woes are well known, but by this time most of the problems have been sorted out. The skippers have gotten the Bureau to dump the worthless “magnetic” exploder, which was a great idea except for the fact it didn’t work. The contact exploder was also defective; it required some re-working. American sub skippers were frustrated at watching our torpedoes go “thud” on the sides of Japanese ships. But these things have been corrected now.
As to the naval mines, we haven’t really had call to use them that much. Not yet. This problem will also be sorted out by 1945, when we are in position to extensively mine Japanese homeland waters. Some of our more diabolical mines will include ones with a “counter,” randomly set to allow a certain number of ships to pass by, then “BOOM!” Some of them sit on the bottom for a while, dormant, and then are relased by a timer to go active. Don’t worry about the mine problem.
***Next Topic***
de Seversky missed the boat with the new Japanese weapons systems, particularly with airplanes. Yes, the Japanese kept the Zero more or less a secret before the war. It wasn’t delivered in quantity until just before the outbreak of war with the U.S. To state it wasn’t tested out in China is a myth. It had been, but only in limited quantities. But no, they don’t have anything in the pipeline that they are “holding back.” In fact, the one serious upgrade they did during the war, the replacement of the Val carrier dive bomber by the D4Y Judy, was done poorly. The Val was discontinued from production before the Judy was completely ready. Thus, it is not well known that in 1942, during the Golden Age of carrier combat, the IJN aircraft carriers were short of dive bombers. The Vals that were lost weren’t replaced with Judys until 1943.
No, the Japanese are not holding an ace up their sleeves. In fact, they don’t have too many cards to play right now. Not until they decide to turn airplanes into smart bombs, with the onboard computer guidance system consisting of a live human brain.
They have plenty of time to get the map of that sector of Italy perfected. The dotted line shows the front from a week ago but the map a month ago showed most of the same localities. I am working on posts for a month in the future and the front line has not moved far.
de Seversky’s claim that the Japs would sustain losses rather than disclose and use aerial assets was true to the end.
I read a few years back that it is estimated that there were up to 5000 zeros that had been squirreled away all over japan for defense when the home islands were invaded.
I've sort of noticed the same thing. The way Cassino stands out on the map makes it look like a good defensive position. I wonder what German maps of the area look like?
I don;t always remember to say this, but “thank you” for this labor of love.
So much happened on a daily basis that we never heard about.
These threads help to chronicle and save the accounts of how events unfolded.
I echo everyone's observation as to how close the lines are getting to the Cassino landmass. That fight is about to get very difficult.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.