CHURCHILL WARNS NAZIS OF GAS REPRISALS; U.S. REVEALS ARMY BOMBERS RAIDED TOKYO (5/11/42)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 5/11/42 | Raymond Daniell, James B. Reston, Harrison Forman, C. Brooks Peters, Ralph Parker

[Homer_J_Simpson]

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

[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
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

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Barbara W. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45

[Homer_J_Simpson]

The war is back. It took 2 days longer than it should have, but all the threads and Homer’s profile are live once more.

Premier Ominous (Daniell) – 2
Tokyo Describes Corregidor’s End – 2-3
Anti-Hitler Revolt is Viewed as One of Churchill’s Aims (Reston) – 3
A Trap in Yunan (Forman) – 4-5
War News Summarized – 4
Fires Set in Japan – 5
Red Army Gaining in Kalinin Sector (Parker) – 5-6
Ben-Gurion Outlines Program for Solving Palestine Problem – 7
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on Fighting in Various Zones – 8-9

[fso301]

Interesting threat by Churchill to use gas.

A passage in Otto skorzeny's "My Commando Operations" tells of Soviet threats to use gas unless the Germans stopped using some sort of oxygen/liquid oxygen related ordinance in the Moscow sector circa 1941. I've never been able to determine the veracity of Skorzeny's statement, or what sort of weapon he might have been referring to.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/may42/f11may42.htm

Canadian conscripts not forced to fight
Monday, May 11, 1942 www.onwar.com

Canadian prime minister visits troops in Britain [photo at link]

In Canada... The government, following a public referendum (April 27th), passes conscription for overseas service. However conscripts will not be forced to fight overseas.

In Burma... At Kalewa. The British turn and fight a fierce rear guard action here before continuing the withdrawal to the Imphal area.

In the Mediterranean... German aircraft from Crete sink the British destroyers Lively, Kipling and Jackal.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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)

[Tainan]

Good to see things sorted out Homer.

[ml/nj]

Interesting to see that the NY Times referred to David Ben-Gurion as a "Palestinian"!

ML/NJ

[PzLdr]

Churchill was REAL lucky Hitler didn’t call his bluff. He was still in the age of mustard gas and phosgene. Hitler had Tabun and Sarin nerve gas [still the silver, if not gold, standard today.

It was probably one of the reasons the Allies hushed up that little incident in Italy in 1943.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Interesting to see that the NY Times referred to David Ben-Gurion as a "Palestinian"!

I suppose he won't become an "occupier" until the state of Israel is established.

". . . as long as the British policy in Palestine permits us to buy land and to bring in Jews, I am read to put up with everything."

I didn't know this was the case.

[CougarGA7]

• "I talked over the insignia matter with the Chief of Staff, Ground Forces today. Fortunately, I have with me the Deputy Chief of Staff from the British Army in Egypt. I quote him as follows: 'but you know , you must have the vehicles marked. You must have a sign on it. Yes, of course you must.' I got the promise that something was going to be done about it!" - Dwight Eisenhower to George S. Patton on Patton's concerns over vehicles being unidentifiable as to which unit they belonged to.

[CougarGA7]

[fso301]

Churchill was REAL lucky Hitler didn’t call his bluff. He was still in the age of mustard gas and phosgene. Hitler had Tabun and Sarin nerve gas [still the silver, if not gold, standard today.

Didn't the Brit's brew up a batch of anthrax for possible airmail delivery to the Reich?

It was probably one of the reasons the Allies hushed up that little incident in Italy in 1943.

Doesn't even get much mention today.

[CougarGA7]

I don’t think Churchill was overly concerned with it. Hitler had really shown at this point that he was not predisposed to the use of poison gas. From what I’ve seen, I think that his own gassing in the Ypres salient in 1918 made him rather adamant against the use of gas.

That didn’t make it an impossibility of course, which is why there was a reserve of mustard gas at Bari in the Italian incident.

[BroJoeK]

---

May 9, 1942:

• "The Jews of Markuszow, Poland, led by Shlomo Goldwasser, Mordechai Kirshenbaum, and brothers Yaakov and Yerucham Gothelf, escape to nearby forests; See October 1942."

• "American poet Ezra Pound, who is working for the Fascist Italian government, broadcasts from Italy: "You would do better to inoculate your children with typhus and syphilis" than allow more Jews into the United States.
  America, Pound continues, is ruled by Jews and their allies, who are "the dirtiest dirt from the bottom of the Jew's ash can."

"This woman resided in Kerch in the Crimean Peninsula of the Soviet Union.
The Jews of Crimea were murdered up through April 1942.
That month the Germans declared the Crimea judenrein (cleansed of Jews)."

"The Markuszów (Poland) Ghetto was liquidated on May 9, 1942, a day when the ghetto's remaining 1500 Jews were deported to the Sobibor death camp.
This and other May deportations from ghettos in the region signaled the beginning of Sobibor's mass-extermination program.
However, a few of Markuszow's Jews escaped to the Parczew Forest, located about 25 miles northeast of the city.
There, men and women--ill-trained, poorly armed, and underfed--organized as partisans and resolved to take the measure of their persecutors."

---

May 11-12, 1942:

• "American Zionists participating in the Biltmore Conference at New York City's Biltmore Hotel demand that Jews be given sovereignty over Palestine.
  The demand is ignored by Britain, which controls Palestine.

• "Alter Dworetsky, a member of the Jewish Council at Diatlovo, Belorussia, escapes to a nearby forest, only to be shot to death by Soviet partisans after refusing to hand over his pistol."

"Prominent Soviet Jews, at the behest of their government, established the Jewish Antifascist Committee in April 1942.
Its function was to rally Western Jews behind the Soviet Union's effort to resist the Nazi invasion.
Pictured here, at a rally held in New York City's Polo Grounds, are writer Itzik Fefer (center) and the committee chairman, Shlomo Mikhoels (right).
The Jewish Antifascist Committee also attempted to document the experience of Soviet Jewry during the Holocaust, but Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin thwarted these efforts, eventually disbanding the committee in 1948."

"From May 10 to 12, 1942, about 1500 Jews were sent from Sosnowiec, Poland, to Auschwitz, the first of several deportations from that city.
In August 1943 the Nazis deported Sosnowiec's remaining 15,000 Jews to Auschwitz."

---

[PzLdr]

Michkoels was murdered in Smolensk, on Stalin’s orders, after the war, and at the beginning of the pogrom which Stalin’s death preempted.

[CougarGA7]

Backlash from the committee’s suggestion that the Crimea be made into a Jewish Soviet Republic. Stalin believed that this proposal was driven by American Zionists and retaliated. Officially, in January 1948, Mikheols stepped in front of a speeding truck, a tragic accident. Khrushchev would later recount the incident in his diary claiming that he had some help stepping off that curb.

[PAR35]

Thanks for your efforts on this.

[PAR35]

First nekkid picture in a while - and it’s a guy.

On another front, First Presbyterian of Ripley, OH, part of the liberal PCUSA, now boasts 33 members and claims an average attendance of 25. With a budget of $26,000, I doubt that they have a full time preacher or a choir these days.