Posted on 07/13/2012 4:41:53 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/jul42/f13jul42.htm
German Army Group B to take Stalingrad
Monday, July 13, 1942 www.onwar.com
General Paulus (center) leads German 6th Army [photo at link]
From Berlin... Hitler alters the plans for the German summer offensive. Army Group B, which was to provide protection for Army Group A’s attacks in the Caucasus, is now assigned the task of capturing the city of Stalingrad. The German 6th Army (General Paulus) is spearheading the offensive.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
July 13th, 1942
UNITED KINGDOM: USAAF 52nd Fighter Group HQ is established at Eglinton, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The group is equipped with the Spitfire Mk V. (Jack McKillop)
Sloop HMS Pheasant laid down.
Destroyer HMS Zephyr laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.S.R.: Hitler designates Stalingrad as a major objective for Army Group B.
Von Bock is dismissed from the command of Army Group B and replaced by von Weich.
4 Pz. Armee is transferred from A/G B to A/G A. (Jeff Chrisman)
Soviet submarine SC-405 sunk in Minefield Tiger near Seskar island. All hands lost.
The Paulus Potter was in station #11 of Convoy PQ-17, when the convoy was dispersed on Admiralty order on 4 Jul 1942. The ship continued her journey together with the British SS Bolton Castle and the American SS Washington. The next day, they were attacked several times by German Ju 88 aircraft of the III/KG 30 ENE of Bear Island and all three ships were hit by bombs or badly damaged by near misses. The British ship caught fire and sank after an explosion, the American ship stayed afloat but sank the next day and the Dutch vessel was abandoned by the crew in lifeboats after two hits when they believed that she would sink. The 51 crewmembers, 14 gunners and eleven Russian passengers suffered terribly from exposure and hunger before they made landfall after five days at Novaya Zemlya where they managed to make a fire from timber they found on the shore and caught some ducks to cook them. On 14 July, the men came across the survivors from Washington and together they rowed southwards, where they found the abandoned American SS Winston-Salem, which had run aground. They boarded the vessel and eat their first real meal in ten days. Later they were taken off by a Soviet whaling vessel and on 17 July transferred to the British steam merchant Empire Tide, anchored in the Matochkin Strait. On 20 July, the ship was part of a small convoy of five merchants and eleven escorts that left for Archangel where they arrived four days later. Today the abandoned Paulus Potter was found drifting by U-255 during a sweep at the 76th parallel. The II WO and two mates boarded the ship and tried to start the engines, but this was not possible because the engine room was flooded. They searched the ship and took blankets, cigarettes and other useful materials with them, including a heavy box with confidential documents found on the bridge. The ship was sunk by a coup de grâce at 0825. (Dave Shirlaw)
NORTH AFRICA: In Libya during the night of 13/14 July, the US Army, Middle East Air Force (USAMEAF) dispatches B-17 Flying Fortresses to bomb Tobruk harbor and B-24 Liberators to hit ships and harbor at Bengasi; heavy AA fire accounts for the loss of 1 B-24. (Jack McKillop)
CHINA: Japanese marines capture Juian.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: PBY-5 Catalinas of Patrol Squadron Seventy One (VP-71) attempt a daylight raid of Japanese installations on Tulagi and Gavutu but weather forces cancellation of the mission. (Jack McKillop)
CANADA: 46-foot wooden Boom Attendant Vessels ordered from JH LeBlanc Shipbuilding CO Weymouth, Nova Scotia - HMC HC 156, HC 163, HC 208, HC 209 and HC 210.
German U-boats sink three more merchant ships in Gulf of St. Lawrence; Quebec outcry for protection forces secret Commons session. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: Washington: Roosevelt has today approved the formation of a central intelligence agency for America. Called the Office of Strategic Services, it has grown out of an organization called the Office of the Co-ordinator of Information and is headed by “Wild Bill” Donovan, a millionaire lawyer from Wall Street. Donovan, a forceful “can do” man, has close ties with Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) and has carried out missions for Mr. Churchill.
Major General George C. Kenney, Commanding General 4th Air Force in the western U.S., is ordered to Australia to replace Lieutenant General George H. Brett as Commanding General, Allied Air Forces, Southwest Pacific Area. (Jack McKillop)
CARIBBEAN SEA: German submarines sink two U.S. merchant vessels.
U-166 sinks unarmed Oneida freighter with one torpedo about 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Cape Maysi, Cuba. The torpedo was seen by a lookout but it was too late to take evasive action and it struck on the starboard side amidships just aft of the engine room. The explosion blew away about 20% of the side and caused the ship to sink within three minutes. The survivors among the eight officers and 21 crewmen abandoned ship on two rafts because there was no time to launch the lifeboats. Two officers and four crewmen were lost; three of them on watch below. The survivors made landfall five miles northwest of Cape Maysi several hours later. They walked to the Cape and were taken in the Cuban schooner Zoila to Baracoa, Cuba.
At 0735, the unescorted R.W. Gallagher was hit on the starboard side by two torpedoes from U-67 about 80 miles from Southwest Pass, Mississippi. The first torpedo struck at the #3 tank just forward of amidships and the second hit abaft the midships house between the #8 tank and the pump room. The explosions buckled parts of the ship and started a fire that quickly spread the length of the vessel and into the water. The tanker immediately took a 30° list to starboard, capsized at 0900 and sank at 1130. With the steam whistle jammed, the eight officers, 32 crewmen and twelve armed guards (the ship was armed with one 5in, one 3in, two .50cal and two .30cal guns) abandoned ship in one lifeboat, one raft and by jumping into the water because the fire had destroyed the other boats and rafts. The master was the last man that jumped overboard after he waited for 40 minutes on the bow. Two officers, four crewmen and two armed guards were lost. USCGC Boutwell picked up the survivors within one hour and three of the most seriously wounded were taken by a USCG plane from Biloxi Air Station to Lake Pontchatrain, transferred to the USCGC CG-6264 and taken to the Marine hospital in New Orleans. Two crewmen died ashore from severe burns after reaching the hospital
At 0408, the unescorted Andrew Jackson on a nonevasive course was attacked by U-84 with two torpedoes about 20 miles off Cardenas Light, Cuba. Only one of the torpedoes struck just aft of amidships. The blast killed three men on watch, destroyed the engines and vented through the deck above the engine room, collapsing portions of the stern. The eight officers, 30 crewmen and 11 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in, four .50cal and two .30cal guns) abandoned the ship before a second torpedo struck, which sank the ship immediately. The survivors landed at Vavendaro on the north coast of Cuba in three lifeboats 12 hours after the attack. The master Frank Lewis Murdock was also in command of the Yaka, which was damaged by U-624 in Convoy ONS-144 and sunk by U-522 on 18 Nov 1942. (Jack McKillop and Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0221, the Sithonia, dispersed from Convoy OS-33, was torpedoed and sunk by U-201 west of the Canary Islands. Seven crewmembers were lost. The master and 20 crewmembers made landfall after 18 days at Timiris, Senegal and were interned by the Vichy French authorities at Port Etienne. The chief officer and 24 crewmembers were picked up after sailing about 820 miles in 14 days by a Spanish fishing vessel and landed at Las Palmas. (Dave Shirlaw)
Praise the Lord, Hitler just ****ed up again. I wonder if Stalingrad had to be taken. I suppose it was not part of the original plan but would the Germans want to drive into the Caucasus with a Soviet bridge head over the Volga at Stalingrad?
I did notice the photo of the “new” M4 (Sherman) tank. The photo did mention it was designed with mass production in mind.
As I recall, transport logistics to the various theaters played a considerable role in the M4's specifications.
That is interesting. I never heard of that consideration before. I knew the Germans got into trouble with say the Tiger tanks because of the issues you mention.
"As dawn broke on July 13, 1942, Major Wilhelm Trapp, 53, the beloved commander of German Reserve Police Battalion 101, addressed his men near Jozefów, a village with 1800 Jews in the Generalgouvernement of Nazi-occupied Poland.
Mostly middle-aged family men who had been in Poland less than three weeks, these members of the Ordnungspolizei (Order Police) heard the teary-eyed major explain that the battalion had orders to round up Jozefów's Jews.
They were to select the able-bodied males for labor, and then shoot everyone else--women, children, and the elderly.
"Trapp's explanation included a significant option: Those Ordnungspolizei who could not perform the task did not have to kill. Murder, in other words, was not mandatory.
About a dozen members of the 500-man battalion accepted this offer.
The rest murdered 1500 of Jozefów's Jews.
By the end of 1943, Reserve Police Battalion 101 (members pictured) --in conjunction with other Order Police killing units--had shot 38,000 Jews and helped to deport another 45,000 to Treblinka.
"Using postwar interrogation records, Holocaust scholar Christopher Browning's book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland documents this history and explores one of the Holocaust's most fundamental questions: How could apparently normal persons become mass murderers?"
"A number of Jews are being buried in the Jewish cemetery in Siedlce, Poland.
The Germans forced the local firemen, among them the man who took this photograph, Tadeusz Castelli, to bury the bodies."
The most signifigant, to date, and most damaging interference by Hitler in German Army operations.
First he changes the mission of Army Group ‘B’ from protecting the flank of Army group ‘A’ to taking Stalingrad. Army Group ‘B’ will now have TWO missions, and it will be pinned to one geographic area. And one of Germany’s worst battlefield commanders, IMHO, Friedrich Paulus, will lead the assault on Stalingrad, leading the single largest Army in the German order oif battle.
Second, he relieves Fedor Von Bock, one of his best AG commanders from command of AG ‘B’.
Third, he orders 4th Pz. Army [Hoth], sent to AG ‘A’. All this succeeds in doing is to cause massive traffic jams, and slow the momentum of AG ‘A’ at a time when it doesn’t need 4th Pz. Army. When it DOES need 4th Pz. Army, Hitler will have sent it back north, to support Palus in Stalingrad.
"4,259 Assigned to Projects in Parks, Hospitals, Clearing Weeds and as Watchmen...
"Only the Physically Unfit Will Be Excused -- Pay Equal to Former Allowances"
Well now, isn't that a good idea?
I'll bet it proves so sensible that even 70 years later, to the very day, no US President would dare to even think of eliminating such a policy.
I mean, after all, isn't that why we're going to war, to defeat National Socialism?
;-)
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