MANILA IN PERIL AS REINFORCED FOE CLOSES IN; M’ARTHUR FIGHTS ON; SHIP EVACUATES WOUNDED (1/1/42)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 1/1/42 | Charles Hurd, Daniel T. Brigham, Hanson W. Baldwin

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Malaya, 1941: Topography-Japanese Centrifugal Offensive, December 1941-January 1942
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941 – Operations of the Japanese First Air Fleet, 7 December 1941-12 March 1942
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941 – American Carrier Operations, 7 December 1941-18 April 1942
Micronesia, Melanesia and New Guinea: Japanese Centrifugal Offensive-Japanese Fourth Fleet and South Seas Detachment Operations, December 1941-April 1942
Luzon, P.I., 1941: Centrifugal Offensive, 10 December 1941-6 May 1942-Fourteenth Army Operations on Luzon
Netherlands East Indies, 1941: Japanese Centrifugal Offensive, December 1941-April 1942, Sixteenth Army and Southern Force (Navy) Operations
Southern Asia, 1941: Japanese Centrifugal Offensive (and Continued Operations), January-May 1942
Eastern Europe, 1941: Soviet Winter Offensive – Operations, 6 December 1941-7 May 1942

[Homer_J_Simpson]

The index by author at the bottom of Homer’s profile is now updated through 1941. There is also a new link to CougarGA7’s Year in Review post which in turn has links to all the threads from last year.

Happy New Year, one and all.

Japanese Nearer (Hurd) – 2-3
The International Situation – 3
Nazis Hurled Back (Brigham) – 5-6
Corregidor’s Value to Manila (Baldwin) – 7-8
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on Fighting in Various Zones – 9-10

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/jan42/f01jan42.htm

Germans counterattacking in Crimea
Thursday, January 1, 1942 www.onwar.com

On the Eastern Front... German forces counterattack near Kerch in the Crimea. Soviet forces from the Kalinin Front retake Staritza.

In Washington... Representatives of 26 countries meet to endorse the principles of the Atlantic Charter. They agree to employ all their resources against the Axis power and to make no separate peace. This is the first step toward the establishment of a United Nations.

[BroJoeK]

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December 1941-January 1942:

"Six hundred Soviet prisoners of war are murdered in a gas-chamber experiment at Auschwitz."

Winter 1941-1942:

Sixteen thousand Jews are rounded up in Germany and deported to the Riga (Latvia) Ghetto."

"Thea Borzuk Slawner poses with her mother on the occasion of her second birthday party, which was celebrated behind the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Despite living in appalling conditions, Warsaw's Jews spared no effort to retain their humanity.
Religious and family celebrations became symbols of Jewish resistance.
Thea and her mother escaped the ghetto just prior to the 1943 uprising.
They survived the war, living among gentiles under assumed names.

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• " A gas chamber (probably never used) and a crematorium are installed at the Dachau, Germany, concentration camp.

• A concentration camp is established at Riga, Latvia.

• A forced-labor camp for Jews is established at Vilna, Lithuania.

• Delegates from the United States, Great Britain, and Occupied European nations' governments-in-exile attend the St. James Palace Conference in London to discuss Nazi war crimes and possible Allied responses.
  Jews are not discussed as a unique category of victims.

• The Germans elevate collaborator Pierre Laval to premier of Vichy France.

• Hajj Amin al-Husseini, grand mufti of Jerusalem, flees to Germany following an unsuccessful attempt by Arab nationalists to undermine British control of Palestine, and to create a Muslim legion to fight alongside German troops.

• The American Council for Judaism, an anti-Zionist organization, is co-founded in New York by New York Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger.

• German Protestant theologian Karl Friedrich Stellbrink is arrested after disseminating letters of anti-Nazi Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen; See November 10, 1943.

• Hitler names Albert Speer minister for armaments and munitions.

• Yitzhak Shamir succeeds Abraham Stern as head of the Zionist Stern Gang in Palestine after Stern is killed by British security forces.

• The Jewish Combat Organization, a resistance group, is formed in Warsaw, Poland.

• Janusz Korczak, director of a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw, refuses an offer of freedom from his Polish friends and accompanies his young charges to Treblinka.

• The Antifascist Bloc, an amalgamation of Jewish Communists and Zionist Socialists, begins publication of Der Ruf(The Call), an underground, anti-Nazi newspaper."

• At the Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, camp/ghetto, a half-Jewish Czech youth named Petr Ginz conceives Vedem (In the Lead), a secret camp "magazine" of poetry, humor, gardening tips, and the grim truth about camp operations; See September 28, 1944.

• German Catholic priest Max Josef Metzger writes a plea for a new German government. The letter will be intercepted by the Gestapo, precipitating his arrest; See April 1944.

• Early 1942: The United Nations establishes the United Nations War Crimes Commission to handle future prosecution of Nazi war criminals.

• Early 1942: Christian Wirth, Nazi executions expert, hooks an armored-car diesel engine to the gas chambers at Belzec."

January 1942:

• "Mass killings of Jews using Zyklon B begin at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The bodies are buried in mass graves in a nearby meadow.

• Nearly all of the remaining Jews in Odessa, Ukraine, are deported to concentration camps.

• A special medical commission visits the Gross-Rosen, Germany, concentration camp to select human subjects for medical experimentation.

• In France, Joseph Darnand establishes the Milice Française (French Militia), a Fascist paramilitary organization."

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January 1, 1942:

• "In the U.S., the Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) is established to investigate and arrest suspected Nazi war criminals.

• The United Nations is formed in Washington, D.C., by 26 signatories who agree to work together to defeat the nations of the Tripartate Pact, and to work for a single, commonly shared resolution to the war.

• The Germans execute 23 Czechoslovakian workers for sabotage."

"The wedding of Salomon Schrijver took place in the Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam in 1942.
In spite of the Nazis' defeat of Holland, normal routines continued for Dutch Jews until preparations were made for their deportation.
Beginning in January 1942, many Dutch Jews were concentrated in labor camps.
The Nuremberg Laws were promulgated in March and Jews were ordered to wear the yellow badge in April."

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[abb]

A nice website on Ft. Drum (El Fraile), aka “The Concrete Battleship,” one of the forts in Manila Bay near Corregidor Island.

http://www.concretebattleship.org/contents.htm

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

These are interesting.

[CougarGA7]

• General Georg Thomas, Chief of the War Economy and Armaments Department says that they must have 13,000 tons of rubber a month but German industry can only supply 7,300 tons. Replenishment depends of South American blockade runners getting another 12,000 tons delivered from Indochina, as well as another 25,000 tons that had been bought from the French, but are being held by the Japanese.

• "The strength of the Red Army is based upon its great mass, the number of its weapons and the simplicity, toughness and courage of its soldiers. The weakness lies in the lack of training, which does not satisfy modern standards, and the lack of organization, which is obvious in all area." - Department of Foreign Armies East

[PzLdr]

“January, 1942” omits the Wansee Conference.

[BroJoeK]

PzLdr: "“January, 1942” omits the Wansee Conference."

Curious, but the possible explanation is that items listed have no definite date beyond "January".

There will be much said about the Wansee Conference when the time comes -- January 20.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

This is the first of the Etherington posts after Dec. 29 to be updated. I will post others as I find them available - Homer.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/01.htm

January 1st, 1941

UNITED KINGDOM: The BBC broadcasts its first “Brains Trust”, in which a panel of experts discuss topical questions of the day.
RAF Bomber Command: 141 RAF bombing targets tonight include Bremen, where 95 aircraft attack shipyards and, especially, the city’s Focke-Wulf aircraft factory.
Light cruiser HMS Mauritius commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
London: The chief of the Free French naval forces, Vice-Admiral Muselier is arrested on suspicion of treason.
The Intelligence Service had acquired four documents, allegedly emanating from the Vichy French Consulate in London, one of which proved that Muselier had betrayed the plans of the Dakar expedition and sent them to Vichy through the intermediary of the Brazilian Embassy. Another document showed that Muselier was plotting to hand over the submarine ‘Surcouf’ to Vichy, and yet another showed that he had received £2000 for sabotaging the recruiting of sailors for the Free French naval forces. The evidence is brought before Churchill who reacts in characteristic fashion. Sir Alexander Cadogan notes in his diary: “PM of course wants to hang him at once. I pointed out possible effect on de G. movement... For good measure, Churchill wanted to declare war on Brazil...”

ÉIRE: The Luftwaffe bombs Dublin and four counties.
BELGIUM: Leon Degrelle, the leader of the fascist Rexist movement, calls for greater collaboration with Germany.
GERMANY: In a New Year’s proclamation to the army Hitler declares “The year 1941 will bring consummation of the greatest victory in our history.”
U-216 is laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: C-in-C Med: Status report. The Luftwaffe now has around 150 bombers and fighters in Sicily compared with the RAF’s 15 Hurricanes in Malta.
NORTH AFRICA: General O’ Connor’s Western Desert Force is renamed 13 Corps.
FRENCH INDOCHINA: The French Indochinese navy defeats the Royal Thai Navy at Koh Chang. (Michael Alexander)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: Philippine Department G-2 recommends consolidation of all Philippine defenses under War Department. No response was received.
CANADA: Minesweepers HMCS Medicine Hat and Red Deer laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Together with HM ships Duncan, Foxhound, Hero and Jaguar, HMS Firedrake took part in operation ‘Ration’ - the interception of a convoy of four Vichy French merchant ships, escorted by an armed trawler, clear of Spanish territorial waters off Cape Tres Forcas. Ships of the convoy were later escorted to Gibraltar; the trawler was allowed to proceed. (Daniel Ross)

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/01.htm

January 1st, 1942

UNITED KINGDOM: Minesweepers HMS TOURMALINE and HMS STRENUOUS are laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

GERMANY: U-901 is laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

AUSTRIA: Fuel rations for factories in Vienna are cut to a sixth of the required amount.

SWITZERLAND: Fresh milk is rationed. Adults receive 5 decolitres per day, children 7 decolitres. (William Jay Stone from http://www.geschichte-schweiz.ch/en/worldwar2.html)

FINLAND: Red Army starts an offensive against the Finns on the Maaselkä Isthmus between the Lake Onega and White Sea. Objective is to recapture the town of Karhumäki (Medvezhjegorsk) and the western stretch of Murmansk railway. The defending Finnish II Corps has two divisions (4th and 8th) and one brigade (1st Jäger), the Soviet attackers seven divisions and two brigades.

The Finnish troops are still suffering from the effects of six-month long offensive, and the men are eagerly waiting to go home - a partial demobilization had been promised after the Finnish offensive ended in December. The Soviet offensive is able to penetrate the Finnish defences near the village of Krivi, and the fighting rages on for weeks. In early February, after both sides had suffered considerable losses, Finns are able to push the Red Army back. (Mikko Härmeinen)

U.S.S.R.: German forces counterattack near Kerch in the Crimea. The Red Army in turn, presses on with the counter-attack which it launched on December 28th.

CANADA: Commissioned for Fisherman’s Reserve from the seized local Japanese fishing fleet - HMCS Billow (ex Kurashio) and HMCS Comber (ex CSC II). They will be sold in 1945.

HMCS Scaterie and Valinda are chartered for wartime service. They will be returned to their owners in 1946. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.A.: UN established as representatives of 26 countries meet in Washington, DC to endorse the principles of of the Atlantic Charter. The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China are among the signatories. They agree to fight the Axis and not to conclude a separate peace.

Besides the four major Allied war powers, the signatory countries included four nations of the British Empire - Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa - the governments in exile of eight European countries overrun by Germany - Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Yugoslavia - and nine Latin American republics - Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

The “united nations”, with four-fifths of the world’s population, subscribed to the principles of the Atlantic Charter signed by President Roosevelt and Mr Churchill last summer.

The United States government order the cessation of manufacture of automobiles and trucks for civilians to save steel.

Joseph Stalin named “Time” magazine’s “Man of the Year” (Gene Hanson)

Minesweepers USS VITAL and USS USAGE are laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-333 is attacked by an Allied aircraft but is not damaged. (Dave Shirlaw)