Posted on 07/23/2012 6:37:28 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Red Army Retires (Parker) – 2-3
Advance in Desert – 3-4
U.S. Hospital Unit Under Desert Fire (Sedgwick) – 4
U.S.-Made Tanks Join in Charge in Egypt as Imperial Guns Blast Path Through Foe (McMillan) – 4
Action on the Egyptian Battlefield: The British Hammer Away at the Axis (photo) – 5
29 From a Sunken U-Boat are Buried at Hampton, Va. – 6
Japanese Invade East New Guinea – 7
War News Summarized – 7
Russia’s Battle at Crisis (Baldwin) – 8
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on Fighting in Various Zones – 9-10
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/jul42/f23jul42.htm
Armies fighting along Don River
Thursday, July 23, 1942 www.onwar.com
German soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front [photo at link]
On the Eastern Front... There is heavy fighting between the Soviets and the Germans along the Don River from Rostov to Tsimlyansk, especially near Novocherkassk.
In New Guinea... Advancing up the Kokado Trail, the Japanese 17th Army engaged the Australian defenders near Wosida.
From Washington... US Secretary of State Hull urges the formation of an international peace keeping organization by the United Nations after the war.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
July 23rd, 1942
GERMANY: U-640 launched.
U-187, U-632 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
POLAND: Warsaw: The Judenrat [Jewish Council] leader, Adam Czerniakow, commits suicide.
EASTERN FRONT: There is heavy fighting in Russia along the Don from Rostov to Tsimlyansk.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: An RN 815 Sqn Swordfish failed to return from an eastern Mediterranean ASW sweep. (Dave Shirlaw)
NEW GUINEA: Advance elements of the Maj-Gen Horii’s South Seas Detachment (approximately equal to a weak division) advancing up the Kokoda Track towards Port Moresby make contact with Australian forces. Horii reports to Japanese 17th Army (Lt-Gen Hyakutake) at Rabaul.
The Australian forces in this instance are a five-man patrol from 1st Papuan Infantry Battalion. (Michael Alexander)
In New Guinea, B-17s, B-26 Marauders, A-24 Dauntlesses and P-39Airacobra and P-40 fighters pound shipping, landing barges, storage dumps, AA positions, and troop concentrations at Buna and Gona as the enemy pushes inland along the Kokoda trail; fighters also hit the harbor at Salamaua. (Jack McKillop)
PACIFIC: 3 B-17 Flying Fortresses, staging through Canton Island, Phoenix Islands, carry out photo reconnaissance of Makin Island, Gilbert Islands.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: USMC photographers of Marine Observation Squadron Two Hundred Fifty One (VMO-251) using USN cameras and flying in USAAF B-17Es, based in the New Hebrides, fly their first preinvasion photographic reconnaissance mission of the Guadalcanal-Tulagi-Gavutu area.
The B-17s are intercepted by “Rufe” floatplanes (Mitsubishi A6M2-N Navy Type 2 Fighter Seaplanes) but there are no loses on either side. (Jack McKillop)
ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: The planned bombardment of Kiska Island by Task Force 8 is postponed due to weather. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: US Secretary of State Cordell Hull urges the formation of an international peace-keeping organization by the United Nations (Allies) after the war.
Destroyer USS Stevenson laid down.
Submarine USS Billfish and Bowfin laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
The unescorted Garmula was torpedoed and sunk by U-752 about 200 miles SW of Freetown. The master, 61 crewmembers and five gunners were picked up by armed trawler HMS Pict and landed at Freetown. 20 crewmembers and one gunner were lost. (Dave Shirlaw)
CARIBBEAN SEA: At 2222, the unescorted and unarmed Onondaga was hit by one torpedo from U-129 about five miles north of Cayo Guillermo, while steaming on a nonevasive course at 8.5 knots. The torpedo struck on the port side amidships, causing the ship to sink within one minute. The eight officers, 25 crewmen and one passenger abandoned ship by jumping overboard and swam to two rafts that had flooded free. Six officers, 13 crewmen and the passenger were lost. The survivors were picked up by the Cuban fishing boat Laventina the next morning and landed at Punta San Juan, Cuba. (Dave Shirlaw)
“....If I never see another grain of sand, I’ll be happy...”
thanks for sharing, Homer....
"Prisoners at Auschwitz were used to build the Birkenau killing center.
This picture shows crematorium IV, under construction.
Early on, the victims of the gas chambers were buried in pits.
As the pace of the killing intensified, the bodies were burned, first in the pits themselves and later in the crematoria.
Construction at Auschwitz-Birkenau was continuous from the winter of 1941 through the summer of 1944."
"The ovens for crematorium II in Auschwitz-Birkenau, like those in the first crematorium, were built by prison inmates.
With a ready supply of labor and the confiscated wealth of European Jewry at their disposal, the Nazis had the necessary resources for their genocidal agenda."
According to the story, some drowned German Nazi sailors whose bodies were recovered from a sunken U-boat were buried with military honors by Americans on American soil!!!
The bodies should have been burned and the remains unceremoniously dumped into the sea, like Osama bin Laden's was more recently.
And there should have been military discipline meted out to those Americans who were foolish enough to plan and carry out the ceremonies for the enemy military personnel whose insane goal was undeniably to spread the ideology of Hitler and Nazism to the entire world.
I’m sure you have been reading what the Japanese and Germans have been doing to our troops, civilians, hostages and especially Jews. Don’t you think the US did this to emphasize the difference between us and them?
Hitler was an Allied secret weapon. He made SO many stupid decisions that shortened the war.
I don't know what the motivation was. There wasn't much "political correctness" at the time. But I certainly don't think honoring the deceased German Nazi (or Japanese, for that matter) military personnel was appropriate at all. They were, after all, an enemy fighting to destroy the US as Americans knew it.
There should have been some established rules for the American military to deal with such situations, and they shouldn't have gone anywhere near this far in their respect for the enemy deceased. After all, if these Germans (or Japanese) had been captured alive, they would be, at the least, in prison for the duration of the war.
From reading about WWII and chatting with my late father, a WWII veteran, I can sense that just about all the top military brass in the US armed services would probably have become enraged if something like this had happened under their command.
Grow up.
If you disagree with me, please explain why.
Well, to start with, both Germany and the US subscribed to the Geneva convention, and honored it as to each other. Would you have preferred for the Germans to have treated American prisoners as they did Soviet prisoners, since Stalin never signed the Convention?
Would you have preferred for US prisoners to be treated by the Germans as they were by the Japanese?
Have you ever read the Geneva Convention of 1929?
“Belligerents shall see that prisoners of war dying in captivity are honorably buried and that the graves bear all due information, are respected and properly maintained. “
Well there was that Malmedy thing.
Probably needs a thread of its own. And should we also discuss American troops who executed prisoners?
Such treatment of enemy dead certainly helped keep the Germans from getting suspicious when the U-505 failed to return from patrol.
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