RUSSIANS STRIKE BACK NEAR VORONEZH; SOVIET SUBMARINE TORPEDOES TIRPITZ (7/9/42)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 7/9/42 | Daniel T. Brigham, Henry J. Taylor, A.C. Sedgwick, Joseph M. Levy

[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
Southwest Russia, 1942: German Summer Offensive, Operations, 7 May-23 July 1942
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941: Status of Forces and Allied Theater Boundaries, 2 July 1942
India-Burma, 1942: Allied Lines of Communication, 1942-194

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Red Army Attacks (Brigham) – 2-3
Big Battleship Hit – 3-4
War News Summarized – 4
Big Rommel Force Reported Cut Off – 5
Bostons Outfight Stukas in Desert (by Henry J. Taylor, first-time contributor) – 6
British Watch Battle Brewing across Bleak Egyptian Desert (Sedgwick) – 6
Foe’s 5th Warship is Hit in Aleutians – 6-7
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the War – 8-9
British in Egypt Seen in Dire Peril (Levy) – 9

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/jul42/f09jul42.htm

Germans after oil in the Caucasus
Thursday, July 9, 1942 www.onwar.com

The oil fields in the Caucasus [photo at link]

From Berlin... The Germans reorganize the command structure of their forces in the south of the Eastern Front. Army South is divided into Army Group A, comprised of 1st Panzer Army, 17th Army and 11th Army under General List and Army Group B, comprised of 4th Panzer Army, 2nd Army and 6th Army under General Bock. This reorganization is designed to expedite the Caucasus offensive. The plan is for Army Group A to advance proceed south through Rostov and capture the oil fields halting on a line from Batumi on the Black Sea to Baku on the Caspian. Army Group B is to advance north of the Don River and establish a protective front for this actions.

From the Eastern Front... German Army Group A begins its attack south to secure the oil fields in the Caucasus. Army Group B reaches Rossosh, cutting the Moscow-Rostov Railway in its advance to provide flank protection for Army Group A.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm

July 9th, 1942

UNITED KINGDOM: In England, 7 8th Air Force P-38s arrive in the UK via the North Atlantic route, this being the first time single-seater USAAF aircraft have flown this route. (Jack McKillop)

Minesweeper HMS MELITA is laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

ENGLISH CHANNEL: ASW trawler HMS MANOR is sunk by German motor torpedo boats. (Dave Shirlaw)

GERMANY: RAF bombers raid the U-boat base at Wilhelmshaven.

U-227 launched.

U-345 and U-976 are laid down.

U-630 is commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)

NETHERLANDS: Amsterdam: The Jewish Frank family, including 13-year-old Anne, who keeps a diary, go into hiding from the Nazis.

NORWAY: U-209 lost two men during an accident on the landing place in the harbour of Bergen. The boat went on its next patrol on 17 July. [Funkgefreiter Edmund Kiepulski, Funkgefreiter Alfons Kuklinski]. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.S.R.: Army Group South is divided in two. Army Group A, General List; and Army Group B, General Bock, to initiate separate attacks on the Caucasus and Stalingrad. The advance of Army Group B has already cut the Moscow-Rostov railway.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Six US Army, Middle East Air Force (USAMEAF) B-24s dispatched against shipping are attacked by fighters; one B-24 is lost and the others return to base without bombing targets. (Jack McKillop)

The Italian submarine PERLA is intercepted and seriously damaged by depth charges from corvette HMS HYACINTH. The boat is forced to the surface and captured off Beirut. Towed to the Lebanese port, the Perla is repaired and renamed P-712. In 1943 it was transferred to the Greek Navy where it served until 1947. (Dave Shirlaw)

EGYPT: El Alamein: Nine days after launching what he hoped would be his final, all-out and successful assault on the British army, Erwin Rommel - now a field marshal - appears to have met his match in desert tank warfare.

General Sir Claude Auchinleck has taken command of the Eighth Army and has succeeded in repelling several powerful assaults between El Alamein and the impenetrable Qattara Depression. Unfortunately, the “Auk’s” subordinates have not followed orders to “give the enemy no rest.”

ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: In the Aleutian Islands, 5 11th Air Force B-24s fly photo, weather, and bombing missions to Kiska Island but return with the bombs due to weather. (Jack McKillop)

U.S.A.: The First Special Service Force is activated at Camp William Henry Harrison, near Helena, Montana. Consisting of some 2,300 men, the Force was organized into three regiments of about 600 men each, plus a service battalion. Each regiment was divided into two battalions of three companies each. Its Soldiers would carry a variety of U.S. small arms and wear U.S. Army uniforms. Its heaviest weapons would be 60mm mortars and light machine guns. It had earlier been determined that the Canadian Army would participate in the project. The Canadian volunteers, who made up about one third of the unit, were rigorously screened before arrival at Camp William Henry Harrison. Some of the American volunteers were hardly volunteers. Per long-standing custom, many commanders used Frederick’s call for Soldiers to man this new unit as an opportunity to rid themselves of their less-desirable troops, to include some who reported to Montana from post stockades and arrived under armed guard. On the other hand, many of these garrison Soldier troublemakers would prove themselves to be ideal combat Soldiers in the unorthodox Devil’s Brigade. The training that all members of the Force received was intense and extensive. The unfit were weeded out.
Those who withstood the rigorous training became experts in small unit and individual combat, demolitions, amphibious operations, and mountain warfare. They became airborne-qualified. They also got used to using the Weasel, the specially-designed vehicle intended for the snows of Norway. They would never use it there because the Norwegian operation, the reason for the Force’s creation, was cancelled. (Mike Yared)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: Two German submarines sink armed U.S. merchant vessels in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic.

U-67 sinks a tanker 60 miles (96.6 km) west of Southwest Pass, Louisiana.

At 1624, the unescorted Santa Rita was hit by one torpedo from U-172, while steaming on a nonevasive course at 16 knots about 700 miles NE of Puerto Rico. Lookouts had spotted the wake but it was too late and the torpedo struck on the port side between #3 hatch and the engine room. The explosion killed one officer and two crewmen on watch below, wrecked the engines and opened a hole 30 feet in diameter that caused the flooding of the #3 hold. Ten minutes after the hit, the most of the eight officers, 44 crewmen, two passengers and nine armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in and some .50cal and .30cal guns) abandoned ship without orders in the two starboard lifeboats, but one of them capsized and one crewman drowned. The master, chief officer and ten men in a third boat followed them. The U-boat then surfaced and fired some machine gun burst to warn the survivors and fired four rounds from the deck gun into the superstructure and destroyed the radio room. Some Germans boarded the abandoned vessel, searched her and placed scuttling charges on board. They returned to the U-boat after two hours with some foodstuffs. The ship sank capsizing at 20.30 hours after the charges detonated and seven more shells were fired into the hull. The master was questioned by Emmermann and then taken on board as prisoner of war. 32 survivors in two lifeboats were picked up on 11 July by the USS Livermore and Mayo and landed at Port of Spain, Trinidad. The other lifeboat with 27 survivors was taken in tow by a US Army Air Force crash boat after being spotted on 25 July by an aircraft and landed at Borenquen Point, Puerto Rico. The master Henry R. Stephenson was landed on 21 July in Lorient, taken to Wilhelmshaven and from there to the POW camp Milag Nord near Bremen. He was repatriated on the Swedish motor merchant Gripsholm in January 1945 through a Red Cross exchange of prisoner of war. (Dave Shirlaw and Jack McKillop)

At 2305, the unescorted Cape Verde was torpedoed and sunk by U-203 east of Grenada. One crewmember and one gunner were lost. The master, 31 crewmembers and eight gunners landed at the Bay of St Vincent, Windward Islands on 14 July.

At 1601, the Nicholas Cuneo was stopped by U-571 with 20-mm gunfire across her bow and sunk with 43 shells from the deck gun after the crew had abandoned ship.

At 0247, the unescorted Empire Explorer was torpedoed and sunk by gunfire by U-575 west of Tobago. Three crewmembers were lost. The master, 66 crewmembers and eight gunners were picked up by HM MTB-337 and landed at Tobago. U-575 reported the ship under her former name Inanda.

SS Triglav sunk by U-66 at 26.47N, 48.10W. (Dave Shirlaw)

[PzLdr]

El Alamein has almost nothing to do with tank warfare, and Auchinleck, while a great gneral is no match for rommel in armored warfare [There will be no great British tank generals in this war. The closest to the title will be O’Connor].

El Alamein is unflankable. The Med prevents a hook to the north.The Quattara Depression will prevent a wide sweep to the south.

[BroJoeK]

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July 9, 1942:

• "Jewish partisan Vitka Kempner returns to the Vilna Ghetto, having successfully planted a land mine and blown up the engine and ammunition cars of a German military train; See September 1943."

"Children sometimes proved immune to the prejudices so prevalent among their parents.
On June 7, 1942, at Ecole rue Michel Bizot, non-Jewish boys showed their solidarity with their Jewish classmates by wearing the yellow Star of David that was mandatory for Jews.
This action, of course, made it impossible to tell the Jews from the non-Jews, making it more difficult for authorities to persecute the Jewish boys.
Here, the courageous boys are pictured at a later date."

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