Posted on 06/04/2012 4:08:39 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Thank you!
Radio News: http://ia701200.us.archive.org/0/items/1942RadioNews/1942-06-04-CBS-News-of-the-World-AM-Edition.mp3
It’s incomplete.
Worldwide communication was possible through the miracle of short wave radio.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
June 4th, 1942
GERMANY: Cologne: All inhabitants, except key industrial workers, are being evacuated - or have fled - from the devastated city of Cologne following the 1,000-bomber raid by the RAF at the end of last month.
The evacuation is announced in Cologne’s largest newspaper, Kölnischer Zeitung, along with a message from Hitler asking about the extent of the damage. The paper also reveals that the troops have been called in to deal with widespread looting. But across Germany as a whole the extent of the destruction in Cologne is being minimized by the press. People living outside the zones attacked by the RAF have no way of knowing the extent of the damage. Court Martial verdicts show that people spreading “ridiculous rumours” purporting to be truth are sentenced to death.
One significant effect of the latest RAF raid is the closing down of many big stores in the target areas because of the destruction of large quantities of supplies and the dangers of looting.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA: Prague: Heydrich lived for eight days. The Germans took over the whole second storey of the Prague hospital, barred it to Czechs and set up SS machine-gun posts. While German doctors fought to save Heydrich’s life, SS and Gestapo agents swarmed through the city. Arrests and shootings were widespread, but the hunted men were being sheltered by resistance families and the Germans were still without a lead when Heydrich died, aged 38, of blood poisoning caused by infection from bomb splinters in his back.
FINLAND: Mikko Härmeinen covers Field Marshal Mannerheim’s 75th birthday.
ARCTIC OCEAN: Soviet Submarine “M-176”of the Polar fleet and White Sea Flotilla is sunk - mined, at Varanger-fjord. (Sergey Anisimov) (69)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: (Mark Horan writes) The Beaufort Squadron (as number 39 is called in the Med at this time) has been rebuilding its strength since the disastrous 14 April mission. Thus far, operations of the two flights (the first operating Beaufort Is wth the Taurus engine, the second operating Beaufort IIs with the Wasp engine) have been making single plane or sub-flight armed recce missions out of advance fields in Libya.
On this date, the new second flight leader, FL Reginald Patrick Mahoney Pat Gibbs DFC, RAF, age 26, is scheduled to make a early morning strike from LG.05 on an Italian convoy consisting of the mv Reginaldo Giuliani (6,837 BRT) and three escorts, DD Freccia, DE Pegaso, and TB Partenope. Gibbs schedules departure such that the sub-flight, flying in a scouting line, will reach the expected interception point at dawn, limiting the time that defending fighters can use to get off the ground in Libya. his range at dawn. Of the three scheduled aircraft, one is scrubbed with a baulky engine. leaving two Beauforts fot the job, Gibbs flying in AW337. Things go exactly as planned, Gibbs surprises the convoy approaching harbour, and slips his kipper into the merchant vessel, stopping her and causing a severe fire. She sinks later that morning. This is Gibbs first attack in the Mediterranean (having flown his first tour in the home islands) - it will not be his last!
LIBYA: The British Eighth Army launches a counter-offensive on Rommel’s forces in the area known as the “Cauldron”.
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: After attacking Dutch Harbor, Amaknak Island, Aleutian Islands yesterday, the Japanese task force heads for Adak Island, Aleutian Islands to support the Japanese landings on Attu and Kiska. However, a storm is encountered with heavy seas and Rear Admiral Kakaji Kakuta, the commander of Carrier Division Four, decides to turn back and attack Dutch Harbor again. It is rainy with a low-overcast limiting visibility and the two Japanese light aircraft carriers, HIJMS Junyo and HIJMS Ryujo, wait for it to clear. Finally, planes are dispatched to bomb Dutch Harbor in weather so poor that only the best pilots on the two ships were permitted to fly.
Reconnaissance aircraft are launched at 1154 hours local and the first strike, consisting of Eleven Aichi D3A Navy Type 99 Carrier Bombers, Allied Code Name “Val;” ten Mitsubishi A6M Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighters, Allied Code Name “Zeke;” and eight Nakajima B5N Navy Type 97 Carrier Attack Bombers, Allied Code Name “Kate,” is launched in the late afternoon. The incoming aircraft are picked up on a radar station on Unalaska Island at 1740 hours local. The 21 Japanese aircraft strike Dutch Harbor beginning at 1800 hours and damage four new, steel oil tanks containing 22,000 barrels (3.5 million liters) of oil; hit the beached barracks ship SS Northwestern, and bomb a warehouse and a hangar. A second strike force of three horizontal bombers dropped their bombs at 1821 hours but all hit the harbor water and cause no damage. The third strike force attacks the naval magazine area on the south foot of Mount Ballyhoo at 1825 hours hitting 20mm antiaircraft sites and killing four sailors.
After the attack, the Eight “Vals” and “Zekes” from the carrier HIJMS Junyo, unaware of the USAAF’s new fighter base at Otter Point on Umnak Island, rally at the west end of Umnak and are met by eight US Army Air Forces (USAAF) Curtiss P-40s from the Otter Point airfield at Fort Glenn on Umnak Island which shoot down two “Vals” and two “Zekes”. US Army and Navy casualties during the two days are 43 killed and approximately 50 wounded.
One other plane from HIJMS Junyo fails to return, but all the aircraft from HIJMS Ryujo return to ship.
A Navy Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina of the USN’s Patrol Squadron Forty Two (VP-42), sights the Japanese ships by radar and circles them for an hour radioing their position. The ships are attacked by PBYs and USAAF B-17s and B-26s but they score only near misses. (Jack McKillop)
CANADA: Tug HMCS Nashwaak assigned to Halifax. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: USAAF 31st Fighter Group ground echelon and it’s three component squadrons, the 307th, 308th and 309th Fighter Squadrons, depart the US in the Queen Elizabeth.
The motion picture “Mrs. Miniver” is released in the U.S. This war drama, directed by William Wyler and starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Dame May Whitty, Teresa Wright, Reginald Owen, Henry Wilcoxon and Peter Lawford, depicts the “Hollywoodized” experiences of a “middle-class” English family learning to cope with World War II. The film is nominated for twelve Academy Awards and wins six including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Garson) and Best Supporting Actress (Wright).
CARIBBEAN SEA: German U-boat operations continue as U-158 sinks a U.S. armed freighter in the Caribbean south of the Yucatan Channel.
I recommend the book, “ The Thousand Mile War.” It’s about the campaign in the Aleutians, the Japanese occupation on American soil and the air, land, and sea battles to eject them. Very brutal and vicious fighting in some of the worst conditions.
"News of Heydrich's death on June 4 enraged Hitler and prompted Nazi officials to enlist help to locate his killers.
This bilingual poster advertised a reward of ten million Czech crowns for information leading to the capture of Heydrich's assassins."
"From May 10 to 12, 1942, about 1,500 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."
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
P7 says Rommel was using Twitter in 1942.
“Who sees who first” was critical when carriers battled.
Bad move by Genda not to be more on the lookout. I suppose... he ASSUMED he was safe.
As it turned out: Not so much! :-)
“Who sees who first” was critical when carriers battled.
Bad move by Genda not to be more on the lookout. I suppose... he ASSUMED he was safe.
As it turned out: Not so much! :-)
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
The following link is to a compilation of film shot by Ford and others at Midway.
Charlton Heston BUMP.
I saw the movie in the theater when it was released, 1976. It was one of the first movies to use ‘Sensurround’, and it had a lot of real combat footage.
I remember that, I was nine years old and it was the coolest movie I'd ever seen.
I enjoyed “Midway” also. I remember seeing it in the theatre shortly after I moved to South Lake Tahoe, CA. The link I posted at 14, though, is a compilation of footage John Ford and some Navy personnel shot during the actual raid on Midway. When I was searching for this I discovered that Ford also shot the footage of the Doolittle raiders taking off from Hornet I posted back in April. The guy witnessed some major history.
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
The Dutch Harbor Raid was the eventual undoing of the Midway Operation, and Yamamoto knew it, but could do nothing about it.
The extra 85-90 planes carried by the Ryujo and Junyo would/could have made all the difference. Although Ryujo would have likely been with the Battleship Group.
When I was younger, I wargamed this with folks who would know, and the extra bombers, fighters, and search aircraft could have made all the difference.
Like the War in Russia, this was just one of several turning points in WW2 where political interference cost the day.
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