Posted on 07/20/2011 5:07:52 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
I suspect that the Morgan family, unable to use their yacht since the start of WWII in 1939 for any European cruising or probably any safe cruising and likely inability to maintain insurance for such cruising and knowing that the US would ultimately impress the yacht decided to get ahead of things and make the yacht available to the Brits in 1940.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-c/sp159.htm
It served in WWI and “The Navy reacquired the former yacht in April 1942. Following brief classification as a gunboat, with the name Natchez (PG-85), she was placed in commission as USS Oceanographer (AGS-3) in August 1942”
So what happened to the British, I would assume in the interim, we decided we needed it and traded for something else we promised?
It does look like the ship was becoming obsolete so selling to the govt might have been a good way to get rid of it.
It appears the Morgans owned 4 yachts named Corsair............
Corsair IV was the one sold to the British.
http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/30155
It was anything but simple for Guderian's Panzer divisions, which had by then fought their way across roughly 600 miles—through deserts of dust, over unmetalled roads, and through virgin forest.
The artillery's firepower had also been greatly diminished by the loss of many heavy and medium batteries. Given fresher formations, with stronger armoured and artillery support, the high ground of Yelnya would have been no problem. But in the circumstances it was quite a task.
General Schaal, then commanding the 10th Panzer Division, has described the operation to the author. Beyond the Dnieper,he explained, the Russians no longer stood up and fought openly, but increasingly adopted the tactics which were to be practised later by the large partisan units. General Schaal quoted the following instance:
Between Gorodishche and Gorki the division's vanguard had driven through a patch of thick forest. The bulk of the division got past the same spot during the night. But the artillery group which followed was suddenly smothered with mortar-fire from both sides and attacked by infantry at close quarters. Fortunately a motor-cycle battalion of the SS Division 'Das Reich' was bivouacking near by. They came to the assistance of the gunners and hacked them free.
More serious than this kind of skirmish was the wear and tear on armoured fighting vehicles.
The shocking roads, the heat, and the dust were more dangerous enemies than the Red Army. The tanks were enveloped in thick clouds of dust. The dust and grit wore out the engines. The filters were continually clogged up with dirt. Oil-consumption became too heavy for supplies to cope with. Engines got overheated and pistons seized up. In this manner the 10th Panzer Division lost the bulk of its heavy Mark IV tanks on the way to Yelnya.
They were defeated not by the Russians but by the dust. The men of the maintenance units and engineer officers worked like Trojans. But they were short of spares. And the spares did not arrive because supplies no longer functioned. The distances from the army stores had become too great. Every single ammunition or supply convoy lost about a third of its vehicles en route, either through breakdown or through enemy ambushes. Not only the machines but the men too were overtaxed. It would happen, for instance, that parts of a column on the march failed to move off again after a short rest because its officers and men had dropped off into a comatose sleep.
These conditions applied not only to 10th Panzer Division. It was the same throughout the central sector—on Hoth's part of the front as much as on Guderian's. In a letter to Field-Marshal von Bock, Hoth wrote: "The losses of armoured fighting vehicles have now reached 60 to 70 per cent, of our nominal strength." Nevertheless, the troops accomplished their task. On 19th July the 10th Panzer Division took Yelnya.
The wide anti-tank ditch which Russian civilians had built around the town in ceaseless round-the-clock work was overcome by the infantry of 69th Rifle Regiment in spite of murderous gunfire. The division suffered heavy losses, but worked its way forward yard by yard. By evening the infantry had pushed through Yelnya and dug in on the far side.
Lieutenant-General Rokossovskiy, commanding hurriedly collected reserves, drove his regiments against the German positions. But the line of 10th Panzer Division held. On 20th July the SS Division "Das Reich" took up position on the high ground to the left of them. The troops needed a breather.
The Yelnya bend projected a long way eastward from the German front line. It was its most advanced spearhead. South of it the front ran back as far as Kiev, and north of it there was a kink in the direction of Smolensk and thence a wide semicircle towards Leningrad. A glance at the map made it obvious that the Yelnya bend was a bridgehead, the logical strategic starting-point for an offensive against Moscow.
The Soviets understood that too, and therefore determined to smash the Yelnya bend. From the end of July until the beginning of September Army Group Centre was engaged here in its first great defensive battle. Nine German divisions passed through the hell of Yelnya in the course of these weeks—the 10th Panzer Division, the SS Division "Das Reich," the 268th, 292nd, 263rd, 137th, 87th, 15th, and 78th Infantry Divisions, as well as the reinforced "Grossdeutschland" Infantry Regiment.
The following is an account from the sector of the Motorized Infantry Regiment "Grossdeutschland," generally known as G.D.
First Lieutenant Hänert of 4th (Machine-gun) Company, 1st Battalion, G.D. Regiment, was in his foxhole, looking through his trench telescope. That was in front of the level-crossing at Kruglovka in the Yelnya bend. Russian artillery had been firing ceaselessly for the past three hours. All telephone lines were cut, and no runners or repair parties could leave their foxholes. Now the barrage was being stepped up. But it passed over the battalion's sector.
They are lengthening their range—that means they'll charge in a minute, Lieutenant Hänert thought to himself. And, true enough, there they were in his telescope. He stared in amazement: the Soviet troops were charging in close order, mounted officers in front and behind and on both sides of the uniformed earth-brown mass, like sheepdogs around a flock. Bent double, the Russians were pulling their low two-wheeled carts with their water-cooled heavy machine-guns, the Maksims. Infantry guns and anti-tank guns were also heaved into position on the double, including the dangerous 7.62-cm. field-gun known to the German troops as "Crash-boom" because with its flat trajectory the burst of the shell was heard before the sound of the firing.
That was the moment when the German artillery should have massively intervened. But the guns were firing only sporadically. For the first time since the start of the campaign there was a shortage of ammunition, because supplies had all but broken down. It was the first warning of things to come.
The Russians jumped into the ditch of a small stream and vanished from sight. A moment later they were coming up the bank—in front, the officers, who had now dismounted. The men of First Lieutenant Rössert's 2nd Company, dug in to the right of 4th Company, looked out of their foxholes. The Russians were still 700 yards away. Now they were at 600 yards. "Why isn't Lieutenant Hänert opening up with his machine-guns?" the men asked Sergeant Stadler. "He's got his reasons," the sergeant grunted.
Hänert had his reasons. He was looking through his telescope. Now he could make out the faces of the Russians. But still he did not give the firing order. The sooner he ordered fire to be opened the sooner the Russians would go to ground and merely creep up under cover. Hänert knew from experience that the Russians must be crushed decisively with the first blow. Their infantry charges were made with a tenacity bordering on insensate obtuseness. Even if ten machine-guns mowed down wave after wave the Russians would come up again. They would cry "Urra!" and be killed.
Lieutenant Hänert, by the railway embankment of Kruglovka, saw them coming. They were still 500 yards away. At last Hänert stood up and shouted, "Continuous bursts!"
Like a thunderclap a storm of stuttering broke out. The Russians went down. Past the dead and wounded of the first wave the second wave pushed forward—firing, leaping, using aimed fire with single rounds. And the Russians were excellent marksmen.
The grenadiers of 2nd Company had to push their heads out of their foxholes if they wanted to fire. And they must fire if they did not want to be killed by the Russians. But as soon as a head appeared anywhere the Russian snipers opened up with their excellent automatic rifles with telescopic sights. More and more weapons fell silent in the area of 2nd Company, "Grossdeutschland" Infantry Regiment, by the level-crossing of Kruglovka in the Yelnya bend. But the last fifty yards defeated the Russians.
Night fell. Russian artillery opened up again. The Russian guns killed many of their own men still alive on the open ground, which afforded no cover. At midnight the pounding ceased. Rössert's and Hänert's men climbed out of their foxholes. There had been two men to each hole when the battle started. But from most of them only one man emerged now. They called for stretchers for the wounded and for the dead by whose sides they had crouched for hours, firing. The battle was resumed at dawn. It went on for five days. Over hundreds of dead bodies the Russians pushed their way into the positions of 1st Battalion. The machine-gun 20 yards to the right of Sergeant Stadler was silent: the last gunner had got a bullet in his stomach, heaven knew how—probably a ricochet. Sergeant Stadler heard the sharp crack of a pistol: the lance corporal had preferred this way out to the long and painful death of a stomach wound. Ten minutes later two Russians jumped into the foxhole. Stadler straightened up. He placed three hand-grenades in front of him. He pulled the pin of the first and flung it. Too short. The second hit the lip of the foxhole and showered it with fragments. The third grenade rolled right in. Like fireworks the machine-gun ammunition went up.
During the sixth night, on 27th July, the position by the railway embankment of Kruglovka was abandoned. The 2nd Company withdrew some 800 yards, to the edge of the wood. The Russians followed up. And the same thing began all over again. On 18th August the regiment was relieved by 263rd Infantry Division. The 2nd Battalion, 463rd Infantry Regiment, repulsed 37 Russian attacks in 10 days. On 25th August the reconnaissance detachment of 263rd Infantry Division joined the neighbouring 2nd Battalion, 483rd Infantry Regiment, in an immediate counter-attack against the enemy, who had penetrated into its positions on the fiercely contested "Crash-boom Hill."
In this engagement Captain Orschler, commanding the reconnaissance detachment, was killed—the first member of the German Wehrmacht to receive the Gold Cross. On 29th August the companies of 15th Infantry Division dropped into the blood-drenched infantry foxholes. The battle continued. Three Soviet divisions were sacrified by Timoshenko on the northern sector at Yelnya alone.
The Russian doctor in charge of the dressing station at Stamyatka, who was taken prisoner, stated that on the sector of 263rd Division he had tended 4000 wounded in a single week.
What book is that from?
I have to check that out at the library.
Just to be clear I should advise you that the photos come from a number of other sources-not this great book. If you're interested in The Eastern Front I believe it's one of the best books you can read. BTW:There's a sequel to this book by the same author. It's called Scorched Earth and if I remember right it concentrates on the Eastern Front between Stalingrad and early 1944.
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