Posted on 05/10/2012 4:49:50 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Southern Asia, 1941: Japanese Centrifugal Offensive (and Continued Operations), January-May 1942
Southwest Russia, 1942: German Summer Offensive, Operations, 7 May-23 July 1942
North Africa, 1940: Rommel’s Second Offensive, 21 January-7 July 1942
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
Navy Scatters Foe – 2-3
Fight at Mandalay – 3-4
War News Summarized – 3
Axis Submarines in Gulf of Mexico for First Time, Sink Two Vessels – 5
Scores Executed in Nazi Reprisals – 6
German Catholics Fight Nazi Tenets (Brigham) – 7
The Coral Sea Battle (Baldwin) – 8
The Texts of the Day’s War Communiques – 9-10
The News of the Week in Review
A Climactic Week in the War Against Japan (map) – 11
Twenty News Questions – 12
Sea Fight with Japan Marks Rise of Our Power (Kluckhohn) – 14-15
Answers to Twenty News Questions – 15
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/may42/f10may42.htm
Last Americans surrender in Philippines
Sunday, May 10, 1942 www.onwar.com
American commander surrenders to the Japanese [photo at link]
In the Philippines... American General Sharp commanding the few remaining resisting American forces issues orders of surrender. Some American troops continue with guerilla actions for the next several weeks.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
May 10th, 1942
UNITED KINGDOM: London: Churchill warns Germany that the British will hit it hard if it introduces poison gas in the USSR.
AFRICA: The aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) launches 68 USAAF Curtiss P-40E fighters off the coast of Africa. The aircraft land at Accra, Gold Coast and then proceed across Africa to India for service with the Tenth Air Force. (Jack McKillop)
INDIAN OCEAN: The German commerce raider THOR captures the SS Nankin. On board are summaries of COIC (Combined Operations Intelligence Centre) Wellington, that infer that the Allies have access to Japanese radio traffic sent in JN25b. (Daniel Ross)
COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES: General Sharp orders the surrender of the resistance forces and US forces.
NEW GUINEA: The Japanese plan to seize Port Moresby is officially cancelled. (Jack McKillop)
CANADA: The Battle of the St. Lawrence. The first German action resulted in the sinking of two merchant ships by U-533, KptLt. Karl Thurmann, Knight’s Cross, CO. The British freighter Nicoya (5,364 GRT) and the Dutch freighter Leto (4,712 GRT) were sunk south of Anticosti Island. Nicoya went sank in position 49.19N, 64.51W, with the loss of six people from the 87 onboard. Leto was sunk two and a half hours later in position 49.32N, 65.19W, with the loss of 12 people from the 43 onboard. These were the first ships sunk by enemy fire in Canadian waters since the War of 1812.
SS Kitty’s Brook (4,031 GRT) Newfoundland-registered Bowater Co. merchantman was torpedoed and sunk by U-588, Kptlt Viktor Vogel, CO, off Cape Sable, in position 42.56N, 063.59W. The ship had been on route from New York City to Argentia, Newfoundland. Nine of her 32 crewmembers were lost. The survivors were able to row into Lockport, Nova Scotia. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: The possibility of increasing the range of small aircraft, by operating them as towed gliders, is demonstrated at the U.S. Naval Aircraft Factory, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, when two pilots hook their Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters to tow lines streaming behind a twin-engined Douglas BD (USAAF A-20), cut their engines and are towed for an hour at 180 knots (333 km/h) at 7,000 feet (2,134 m). (Jack McKillop)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0905, the unescorted Clan Skene was hit by two torpedoes from U-333 and sank about 300 miles SE of Cape Hatteras. U-333 had been badly damaged by depth charges of an escort ship three days before and was limping back to France. Cremer wrote in the KTB, that the sinking of this ship was like a balm after these terrible depth charges. Nine crewmembers from the Clan Skene were lost. The master and 72 survivors were picked up by USS McKean and landed at San Juan, Puerto Rico.
At 0931, the unescorted Aurora was struck by a torpedo from U-506 on the starboard side aft of the bridge in the #6 tank about 40 miles off Southwest Pass, Louisiana. She immediately took a list to starboard, but by shifting ballast returned to an even keel. The master proceeded and kept most of the men on deck near lifeboats. 90 minutes later a second torpedo hit just aft of the first, in tank #8 and a third torpedo struck at the #4 tank. U-506 surfaced and began shelling the tanker, causing a fire in the paint locker. The armed guards did not return fire with the 5in gun on the stern and the two .30cal guns. Shrapnel wounded the radio operator and the chief mate, who died later on one of the rafts. All hands (nine officers, 29 men and 12 armed guards) abandoned ship in two boats and three rafts. Würdemann thought that the tanker will sink and departed. Later the master reboarded the Aurora. At 1700, USS Onyx and YP-157 picked up the survivors. USCG tug Tuckahoe arrived and sent a rescue party on board with fire hose and extinguishers. Together with the tug Robert W. Wilmot, the Aurora was towed to Algiers, Louisiana, where she was repaired. (Dave Shirlaw)
Due to an unfortunate series of events my photobucket account expired with no automatic renewal in place. I hope to have the entire war restored later today.
Just curious - What happened on 1/11/40 that drew your attention?
I generally don’t pay attention to these WWII history posting but I notice the Burma Line mention, I collect world globes for awhile and a couple of them have the Burma road on them. There was a few paper fold out globes produced back then that you could get from like coffee companies by sending in a few labels and a small amount of money and they would send you one of these small globes. One was “Fold-A-Globe” which had the Burma Road and the other major globe was “Plano-Sphere” which has it also except the Plano-Sphere you really need to use a mangnifing glass to see it. The Plano-Sphere has a “Free France” words with a symbol on it at the bottom of it too. A lot of globes were sold back during the war as people would here the news on the radio and would use the globe to find where the events of the war were happening geographically. A lot of the globes back then used wooden bases as metal was in a short supply back then. Does anyone remember any of these globes.
Thank you! Your posting are indeed a great treasure. I can’t thank you enough for giving us an opportunity to relive history almost in real time day by day.
I did not learn of your history project until about a year ago. So I started late in the course, from the beginning. You can see I am behind the rest of your students, but I don’t want to rush through this treasure. I’ve recently retired and after an hour walk at the mall each morning, I stop at Starbucks to catch up on email, current news, then reading a day or two of WW2. Again, I can’t thank you enough for the extensive work you perform each day for us.
It’s quite interesting to compare the news reports of that day with the actual history of what happened. Lots of propaganda.
Thanks for these posts. They’re awesome.
About this Nazi guy Heydrich mentioned on p6, I get a feeling we will hear more about him over the next month or two.
I think you have a good shot at being right about that.
Should be required reading for Gen-X/Y/Z that often cannot tell the timeline between WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. I know my wife has this problem. They just do not realize what a massive thing WWII was.
You’ll probably hear about him in the next two and a half weeks.
So you also get that feeling. I'm not sure exactly what it is about Heydrich or the way newspaper articles about him are written but I get a strong sense that we aren't the only ones paying close attention to him.
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