U.S. BOMBERS SET EMDEN ABLAZE; 138 NAZI PLANES DOWNED TO OUR 20 (12/12/43)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 12/12/43 | Frederick Graham, John C. Crider, Milton Bracker, Sidney Shalett, Drew Middleton, Hanson W. Baldwin

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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THE NEWS OF THE WEEK IN REVIEW

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[PAR35]

Remember, the Russians had whipped the Nips a few years earlier in some significant border battles. If the Nips had moved north in December 1941, rather than east, they probably could have secured everything from Lake Baikal east, including the Pacific ports, and probably pushed as far as Irkutsk, just west of the Lake. And they’d have ended up with a city at each end of their stretch of the Trans-Siberian, and nomadic tribesmen, with not much else. It would have been great for the Krauts, but makes much less sense than the Dutch islands.

The bigger question is whether they could have picked off the Dutch and the British without directly attacking the US at the Philippines and the other US Islands. That would have been their best bet.

[henkster]

Something like a “little Stalingrad on the Dnieper?” (A phrase from Alexander Werth.)

[fso301]

Something like a “little Stalingrad on the Dnieper?”

Yes. That's a good way of describing the way I see the situation unfolding on p4.

This is not a matter of Wotan testing the faith Germans placed in him with their line on the Dnieper. He is not coming to their aid. They should evacuate the Cherkassy position while they can still do so in an orderly manner.