Posted on 08/10/2011 4:29:57 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
The News of the Week in Review
Twenty News Questions – 9
Seven Weeks of the Nazi Onslaught Against Russia (map) – 10
World Problems Weigh on Britain and the U.S. – 11
Guerrillas Scorch Earth for Nazis – 12-13
Answers to Twenty News Questions – 13
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/aug41/f10aug41.htm
British and Soviets to support Turkey
Sunday, August 10, 1941 www.onwar.com
From London and Moscow... The British and Soviet governments pledge to assist Turkey if that country is attacked by Axis forces.
In Newfoundland... Churchill and Roosevelt continue their meeting at Placentia Bay. Both are accompanied by their military staffs. The discussions cover the situation in Europe and the Far East.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/10.htm
August 10th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: London: Britain and the USSR promise to go to the assistance of Turkey in the event of an attack by any European power. In identical statements presented to the Turkish foreign office by their ambassadors, the two Allies have also pledged themselves to “observe the territorial integrity of the Turkish republic.”
The statements are seen as counters to German propaganda that Russia would take advantage of Turkey and invade should the latter enter the war.
U.S.S.R.: U-451 sank SKR-27 Zhemchug.
U-144 sunk in Gulf of Finland north of Dagö, in approximate position 59N, 23E, by torpedoes from the Russian submarine SC-307. 28 dead (all hands lost).
Soviet submarine mined and sunk near Vladivostok. (Dave Shirlaw)
NEWFOUNDLAND: The Atlantic Charter Conference between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill continues for a second day in Placentia Bay. Roosevelt boards the destroyer USS McDougal (DD-358) and is transported to religious services in the battleship HMS Prince of Wales as a guest of Churchill. After inspecting the topsides of the British battleship, the President returns in McDougal to heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31); that night, the President hosts the Prime Minister at dinner. (Jack McKillop)
SOUTH AMERICA: Plots to stage pro-Nazi coups are uncovered in Argentina, Cuba and Chile.
The adverts are an intriguing counterpoint to the horrors of war.
“Gay red white and blue enamel on rolled-gold plate.”
“Pocketful of pretty nails in a gay scarf.”
And so forth.
The Riga Massacres
"In the first six months of their occupation of Latvia, the Germans and their local collaborators annihilated 90 percent of the country's 95,000 Jews.
Of the 40,000 Jews living in Riga when the Germans invaded in July 1941, only 4800 were still alive by year's end. During the first days of the occupation, Latvian "civilian" nationalists initiated savage attacks on Riga's Jews, arresting, beating, torturing, and raping Jews while burning synagogues with people inside.
Thousands more were driven toward beaches or nearby woods and shot to death.
The Germans then forced the remaining 32,000 into an overcrowded, dilapidated ghetto.
In November they sorted "productive" workers from the rest, setting up two separate ghettos.
Throwing all available German and Latvian manpower into the "action," the SS transported over 27,000 "unproductive" Jews in modern, blue buses to the Rumbula Forest, where they shot them.
"Having wiped out the entire population of the larger ghetto, the Germans brought in 16,000 Jews from the Reich, most of whom they also killed.
By late 1943 almost all Latvian Jews had either perished in further SS "actions," been murdered in gas vans, or been worked to death in Latvia's infamous Salaspils camp."
"A Latvian civilian is executed by a member of the notorious Einsatzgruppen.
This sort of execution--absurdly time-consuming as well as barbarous--was never abandoned by the efficiency-minded Nazis."
They are, indeed.
FICTION ALERT!
Herman Wouk devoted an entire chapter to the Atlantic Charter conference. His hero, Captain Victor ‘Pug’ Henry (fictitious character), attended because of his job in War Plans and also his more-than-nodding acquaintance with Roosevelt, Churchill, Harry Hopkins, and Admiral King, I will indulge in this one excerpt from the chapter because of Wouk’s take on the meeting of Roosevelt and Churchill. It is a more subjective account than what we will get from newspaper reports or actual history books. It might have value despite the subjectivity, or even because of it. It also sheds some light on the question of how FDR transferred from one ship to another.
Reply #13 goes with Cougar’s reply #11 above. It also addresses the subject of FDR transferring from ship to ship.
I have read that the Anglican service aboard HMS Prince of Wales was very moving.
Of course, the battleship would be sunk off Malaya before the end of the year.
It is a bit surreal when you think about it. This ship which we are watching a Sunday service on will be under the waves before the year is even out.
"-Just south of Vienna is a small place called Moedling and that place was then the replacement battalion for the 3d German Army Panzer Division – one of those who froze half to death between Moshaysk and Moscow.
After training, and I mean training that was peacetime type, what with cross training as driver, loader, gunner and in first and second echelon maintenance, a bunch of us were sent to the Eastern Front as replacements for combat losses.
We were set up as a marching battalion at Warsaw and went along Rollbahn #1 to Smolensk. Riding from Warsaw to Minsk, we stopped one night in the Forest of Slonim.
In one of his speeches about the attack on the Soviet Union, Hitler stated that the Soviets had placed a huge number of divisions along the German-Soviet border. What I saw when traveling through that forest were huge masses of well-camouflaged tanks, artillery, trucks, and other war materiel. Slonim was then only some 30 km. from the German-Soviet border and I must believe Hitler when he speculated that he had taken the jump against the Soviets because a few days later, they would have attacked. To judge from that much war materiel, I am inclined to believe Hitler. Remember: the Nazis were not the only ones who lied through their teeth.
Near Vyasma, I saw a terrible sight. We overran a Red artillery position and everybody was dead. What was so scary was that all the dead Ivans had their lungs exploded inside their bodies; there was no visible sign of artillery impacts, craters, or torn and twisted steel. Their guns were still manned, the loaders still had shells in their hands, but everybody was dead. We were ordered never to speak of what we had seen, that a new kind of weapon (but not poison gas) had been tried out, with devastating results. For the rest of the war, I never again saw such a sight and I still wonder what the weapon could be that would wreak such total destruction of life, but not destroy materiel. Also in this area, a company-sized unit of women in uniform attacked one of our infantry outfits. They put up a hell of an attack, I must admit, and stopped only when they were dead. This was the only time I heard of Russian female infantry.
At times we were in support of the (then) 2d SS (Infantry) Division “Das Reich”, at other times we were in a loose Corps formation with other Wehrmacht units. We fought our way up to Moshaysk; and that was not easy because the damn mud-period set in around October. You would not believe how muddy it got. Infantry types lost their boots in the mud and never found them again. Vehicles gave up the ghost because their engines were strained to such an extent that they burnt out, or threw their rods through the steel of the engine block. Not even the tanks and huge tracked trucks could make it. And then it got cold; I mean C-O-L-D! The mud froze and we were able to again get supplies through, but what we got was gas and ammo, not winter gear.
The fighting started up again and we slowly made our way, trying to pass Moscow to the north. There was little serious fighting, but we received some very bad news. Soviet tanks of a kind nobody had ever seen or heard of before were knocking the hell out of our own Panzers and our 50-millimeter guns were just about worthless against them. The unit I was with, 2d Bn, 3rd Panzer Regiment, never ran up against one of them, the soon to be dreaded T-34s, with its 76 mm gun.
One time we came onto a scene of what we then considered unbelievable horror. Eighteen German soldiers, infantrymen apparently, without boots and jackets, had their thumbs wired together behind their backs and had been killed by the famous “Commissar-shot”: the back of the head. Until then, the fighting had been relatively clean; we had heard of such previous cases, but now we saw what the Reds really did to our men. Pictures were taken, and everybody in the neighborhood was asked to see the scene of this crime. The Reds even had taken the ID Tags from the murdered men. After that, things changed.
We kept slogging our way a few kilometers a day (gas was tight!) and then, one day, we cleaned up a small battle site and our tanks stopped for relief measures (well, coffee agitates the kidneys, right?). Now, the guys who were in charge of constructing the Pz-IIIs had foreseen this problem and had made a small hole on the bottom plate of the tanks; we were supposed to get a rubber hose and pee through it. Didn’t work, nor did the second method: screwing together the rubber hoses of our gas masks. Yes, I know; everybody has seen the gas mask containers at the butts of the infantrymen, but that would not have worked inside the tank, and so they came up with some two feet of rubber hose to lead from the mask to the filter. The result was you suffered until you could get out and do what horses do so profusely when it is cold.
And one cold day I did. Dumb, what I did; I grant you that. I got out of the tank, as always with my MP-38, and, without looking over the landscape, I unbuttoned and let it go. I aimed right into a foxhole…. which was occupied by a very much alive enemy (You just can’t trust those damn Reds!). This guy took umbrage to being leaked on and shot me with his pistol (must have been an officer; no one else in the Red Army wore pistols). So this pissed on and pissed off Ivan shot me right through the right lung. The last thing I felt was something slamming into my chest and another slam at the top of my shoulder. Then everything went black and (so I was told later by the commander of my tank who had suffered frostbites and had been transferred back to Moedling), I took my MP off and fired all 32 rounds into the Russki.
I woke up at the evacuation hospital at Moshaysk one very sick guy. The medic had been a moron and had not properly checked for an exit wound. He had taken very good care of the entrance wound, but had not found the exit wound; probably because it was way up on the shoulder and not where it should have been, the bottom of the shoulder blade. At Moshaysk they gave me blood expanders and other goodies and expected me to die. One time I heard two doctors talk about who would be sent back to Germany with the next Red Cross Train, and one of them, standing right by my bed, said: “let’s take him, too. If he dies on the way, he will at least be buried in the Home Land”. And so they put me on that train and home I went; when I arrived at Ludwigsburg hospital, they were horrified how much blood the black uniform had been encrusted with.........."
A large number of the following photos are from Soviet sources
Company of tank-exterminator dogs operated by the Briansk Front engineer units is marching to the front line. The dogs were supposed to throw their demolition charges on reaching the targets and go back, but in fact they rarely managed to return. September 1941
Trophies are being taken away after the combat. Soviet armament-supply service has transported a whole body of German grenades in a GAZ-AA lorry. Briansk Front, September 1941
After the battle for Krasnaya Siobodka village. Photographs 91 and 92 display Red Army commanders and soldiers bandaging wounded German prisoners. Briansk Front, September 1941
Examining captured materiel, Soviet fighters opened a German gas mask case and found potatoes! Briansk Front, September 1941
Red Army commanders and soldiers bandaging wounded German prisoners. Briansk Front, September 1941 .
Regiment commissar Grishin is talking to personnel of the lOth Armoured Division' infantry units. Briansk Front, Soviet 3rd Army Strike Group, September 1941
Happy German POWs are sharing bread before the distribution of food. Soviet filtration camp of the SouthWestern Front. Ukraine,August 1941.
Inside a filtration camp for German prisoners. Dinner in the open air. South-Western Front, August 1941.
Soviet T-34/76 tank damaged by German troops near Kiev Ukraine, September 1941.
Abandoned by Soviet troops C-65 tractor. It towed two 152-mm howitzers the 1938 model at the same time. The crew most probably perished during the enemy artillery shelling. Ukraine,September 1941
German soldiers are on the streets of Kremenchug in Ukraine. One can sharply see a designation of 9. Panzer-Division. Heeres-Gruppe "Sud",September 1941
German POWs in the Soviet filtration camp of the South-Western Front. Photograph 64 demonstrates Wermacht's soldiers reading anti-fascist literature. In photograph 65 the soldiers are cooking themselves. Ukraine, August 1941
Tank and automobile units of Wermacht's XIV. Armee Korps (mot.). HeeresGruppe "Sud", August 1941.
Captured Red Army soldiers. One of them even made a nazi small flag though he apparently doesn't know the first thing about fascist symbols. Ukraine, August 1941.
Destroyed Soviet headquarters. In the background one can see a petrol tanker on a ZiS-5 lorry chassis. Ukraine, August 1941
German semitracked Sd. Kfz. 10 transporter with infantrymen onboard. Ukraine, August 1941
Lieutenant General von Hubicki is getting acquainted with Hungarian officers from Motorized Corps. Ukraine, August 1941.
Commander of 9. Panzer-Division is working with his headquarters
Commander of Wermacht's 9. Panzer Division Lieutenant General von Hubicki. Ukraine, August 1941.
German Panzer - Zug (armoured train). Failed to identify the train exact1y' as according to German information there were three such trains in Heeres Gruppe "Sud". Trains NQ 4 and NQ 7 belonged to the 6. Armee and NQ 31 was in Heeres Gruppe "Sud" reserve. According to photograph 41 the train belonged to Panzer Gruppe 1, von Kleist. The photographer insisted that he had made the picture in 9. Panzer-Division offensive area. Ukraine, July-August 1941 .
Group of German soldiers commanded by Lieutenant General (he is wearing a coat) is clearing up the order for the forthcoming offensive. Failed to find out the General's name. Ukraine, August 1941
Soviet specialists are examining damage to a knocked out German tank-Ukraine Aug 1941
a German war prisoner in the South-Western Front transit camp. Ukraine, July-August 1941.
Red Army soldiers are convoying German prisoners to the second line. Western Front, August 1941.
German war prisoners from Infanterie Regiment 315 of 167. Infanterie-Division captured by Soviet troops of the Briansk Front. September 1941 .
She came damn close to getting sunk a little over two months ago.
I think the German general in the coat is Reinhardt.
Wonder what it was ?
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