Posted on 04/17/2012 4:20:08 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Carroll V. Glines, The Doolittle Raid
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/apr42/f17apr42.htm
British troops trapped in Burma
Friday, April 17, 1942 www.onwar.com
In Burma... Despite relief efforts, the British 1st Burma Division remains trapped by Japanese advances. In the north, the Japanese seize the main road in the Irrawaddy Valley at Yenangyaung. The Japanese advances place heavy pressure on the Chinese positions in the Sittang Valley and at Mauchi.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
April 17th, 1942
UNITED KINGDOM: Southampton: Private Nora Caveney becomes the first ATS casualty of the war when she is killed operating a range-finder on an anti-aircraft battery site.
GERMANY: Konigstein: General Henri Giraud, the French commander captured in 1940, escapes from a German PoW camp. Giraud was imprisoned in the castle prison at Konigstein. He escapes by lowering himself down the castle wall and jumping on board a moving train, which takes him to the French border. Hitler, outraged, orders Giraud’s assassination upon being caught, but Giraud is able to make it to North Africa via a British submarine. He joins the French Free Forces under General Charles de Gaulle and eventually rebuilds the French army. (Jack McKillop)
Dortmund: The Gestapo reports an increase in anti-Nazi graffiti in this city and other industrial areas of the Rhineland.
The RAF has followed up its devastating fire raid on mediaeval Lübeck with a daring raid from 500 feet on the M.A.N. diesel engine factory at Augsburg. The object was to “blood” new Lancaster bombers and crews on an industrial target easily identified by vivid landmarks. Seven out of 12 Lancasters, from 44 and 97 Squadrons, were shot down and five damaged. Only eight reached the target and of 17 bombs on target, just 12 exploded. Only four factory workshops were damaged, but the raid has caught the public imagination because it was in daylight at low-level.
Augsburg, GERMANY: Sqn-Ldr. John Dering Nettleton (1917-43) led six Lancasters on a daylight raid under heavy attack. Only his plane returned. (Victoria Cross)
Australia: The first class of Dutch personnel bound for the Royal Netherlands Military Flying School at Jackson Army Air Base (1 mile northwest of Jackson, Mississippi), leaves Australia. (Jack McKillop)
The RAF suffering prohibitive losses in daylight bombing raids, which will force them to switch to night bombing. The US Army Air Force will continue daylight bombing.
"For the modern submarine of about 750 tons that is raiding our coast has a surface speed of some 21 knots, which is far fastern than World War submarines.
It can attack at night at high speed on the surface and be away again before our present slow patrol craft can do more than fire a few ineffective shots."And the detectors that have been developed -- radio detecter, not used in the World War, the supersonic detector and the improved hydrophoned -- are not adequate in themselves.
The warning once given, the anti-submarine craft must have adequate speed and gunpower to outmatch the submarine.
We have neither enough detectors nor enough ship0s of adequate speed and gun power today.As a result the merchant shipping situation grows more serious daily..."
Indeed, by April 1942 Doenitz's Operation Drumbeat "Second Happy Time" U-boats have sunk more tons of US shipping vital to the war effort (i.e., oil tankers) than the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor.
Interesting to note that Baldwin here exactly nails the German Type VII U-boat (750 tons, with surface speed about 21 miles per hour, not 21 knots as Baldwin says).
However, the first U-boats in American waters were the larger Type IXs -- 1,000 tons and 21 miles per hour on the surface.
Type VII:
Type IX:
Operation Drumbeat's "Second Happy Time" -- the US coastline at night in 1942:
Neat (and very illustrative) GIF there!
The Type VIIC pictured...is that the one preserved in Kiel?
Dr. Doolittle has heard of the tragic epidemic of victory disease. Tomorrow he will make a house call. His curative powers will transform the Japanese nation.
U995, at the Laboe Naval Memorial is about six miles northeast of Kiel.
The one in Chicago is a IXc.
http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/u-505/story/the-first-exhibition/the-trip-to-chicago/
If I recall the story, it was turned over to the Norwegian Navy after the war. When it was being decommissioned in the early 1960s the organization of surviving Kriegsmariner (U-boat veterans) petitioned the West German government to acquire it for a war memorial. When the government balked, the U-boat veterans pooled their own resources and bought it themselves.
A fitting choice, since the type VII U-boats (and the type VIIC in particular) were the most prolific of all U-boats.
An interesting comparison, in both construction capacity and field of use...the type VII series was about 750 tons, the type IX series was about 900 tons.
In comparison, the typical US “fleet boat” of WW2 (Gato/Balao class) was around 1500 tons.
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