NAZIS SWEEP ON IN CAUCASUS AND ADVANCE IN DON ELBOW; SHIFT CIVILIANS IN THE WEST (8/5/42)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 8/5/42 | Ralph Parker, Arthur Krock, Hanson W. Baldwin

[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
Papua, New Guinea, 1942
Japanese Advance, 21 July-16 Sept. 1942
The Solomons: Guadalcanal and Florida, 1942
Southwest Russia, 1942: German Advance to Stalingrad, Operations, 24 July-18 November 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, 1942-1943

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Richard Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Red Army Wavers (Parker) – 2-3
Nazis Report Fall of Voroshilovsk – 3-4
War News Summarized – 3
3,000,000 in Invasion Zone Reported Moved by Nazis – 4-5
Gandhi is Branded Appeaser of Japan – 5
Text of Resolution Drafted by Gandhi – 6
The Higgins Short Cut (Krock) – 7
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the War – 8-9
Cargo Planes-II (Baldwin) – 9

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/aug42/f05aug42.htm

Germans advancing in Caucasus
Wednesday, August 5, 1942 www.onwar.com

German tank crossing the Kuban River [photo at link]

On the Eastern Front... German Army Group A continues the offensive with advances near the Kuban River.

In the Atlantic... A German U-boat pack attacks Convoy SC-94 marking a return to large scale U-boat actions in the North Atlantic. 11 ships are lost from the convoy. However, improved defensive weapons and strategies sink two U-boats and damage 4 others.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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

August 5th, 1942

UNITED KINGDOM: Destroyer HS Adrias (ex-HMS Border) commissioned.

Minesweeper HMS Gozo laid down.

Frigate HMS Tay commissioned.

Corvette HMS Milfoil launched. (Dave Shirlaw)

GERMANY: U-188, U-304, U-415 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)

FINLAND: Finnish s/s Pohjanlahti sunk at Uzava south from Ventspils by sub S 7. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.S.R.: Voroshilovsk (Stavropol) falls to German Panzers moving south towards the Maikop oilfields; on the Stalingrad front, Panzers capture Kotelnikovo.

EGYPT: Major General Lewis H. Brereton, Commanding General U.S. Army Middle East Air Force, in his first strategic estimate of the Middle Eastern war, indicates that the 3 major objectives for the Allied Air Forces are to assist in the destruction of General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps by support to ground troops, secure sea and air communications on and over the Mediterranean, and carry out a sustained air offensive against Italy and against oil installations at Ploesti, Romaniaand in the Caucasus, if the latter should fall under Axis control. (Jack McKillop)

CHINA: Japanese aircraft again attack the U.S. airfield at Kweilin; notified well in advance by the Chinese warning net previously set up under Brigadier General Claire L Chennault while he was head of the American Volunteer Group (AVG), P-40s meet the Japanese over the target, shooting down 2;and another is downed by ground fire. (Jack McKillop)

SOLOMON ISLANDS: USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses bomb Tulagi and Guadalcanal; 1 B-17 is lost. (Jack McKillop)

The USN light cruiser USS Boise (CL-47) which departed Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii on 27 July tasked to proceed towards the Japanese home islands and transmit enough radio traffic to simulate a task force, launches 2 SOC Seagulls to search for enemy ships. The aircraft become lost and cannot find the ship. Radio silence is broken in order to give the aircraft a bearing which compromises the mission and the ship begins withdrawing to Pearl Harbor. My source states that the Japanese believed that a task force was near the home islands. (Jack McKillop)

CANADA: Minesweeper HMCS Sault Ste Marie (ex HMCS The Soo) launched Port Arthur, Ontario.
Corvette HMCS Pictou damaged in collision in fog off St John’s with SS Hindager. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.A.: A twilight military relief baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants is played at the Polo Grounds in New York City. The Dodgers’ shortstop Pee Wee Reese hits a grand slam home run in the top of ninth inning, making the score Dodgers 5, Giants 1, but the hit doesn’t count because of the 2110 hours government curfew. The game ends up as a 1-1 tie with the Giants and, the contest will be the last wartime twilight game played. (Jack McKillop)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-Boats return to large scale operations on the main north Atlantic routes with attacks beginning on convoy SC-94 today. These attacks will continue through the 13th. The convoy loses 11 ships and 2 U-Boats are sunk, 4 are damaged.

While U-598 was refuelling in the Middle Atlantic from U-463 one of her men drowned (Maschinenmaat Willi Bredereck) during maintenance work on the hydroplanes and propellers.

At 1145, the unescorted and unarmed Draco was taken under fire by U-155 about 325 miles east of Barbados. Several warning shots were fired, after which the crew abandoned ship in two lifeboats. The CO
later questioned the crew. One lifeboat made it to Suriname while the occupants of the other lifeboat were picked up by the British motor tanker Athelbrae.
At 1613, the Arletta, a straggler from Convoy ON-115, was torpedoed and sunk by U-458 SSW of Cape Race. The master, 29 crewmembers and six gunners were lost. The first officer William H. Duncan and four crewmembers were rescued after 15 days by the USCGC Menemsha and landed at Boston, Mass on 25 August.
The Spar was in convoy SC-94 (position 12), which was separated into several smaller convoys due to fog on 3 August 1942. The section Spar was part of failed to notice the signals for a course change, became separated and rejoined the main convoy on 5 August. But before rejoining, U-593 fired three torpedoes at 1848 on three ships, observed a hit on the second ship and heard one detonation on the first vessel.
Kelbling reported a ship of 5000 grt sunk and one of 4000 grt damaged.

In fact only the Spar was hit by one torpedo in the engine room, which probably killed three of four men on watch. The survivors abandoned their ship in two lifeboats and were picked up by one of the escorting corvettes (HMS Nasturtium or HMCS Orillia). (Dave Shirlaw)

[C19fan]

A good writer could turn the little story about the arrest of the Russian Tsarist industralist supposedly turned Soviet spy into a spy novel. Kidnappings, double agents, and perhaps honey traps. It has it all!

[fso301]

Interesting P7 article about Serge Tretiakoff. This use by the Soviets of ostensibly virulent anti-communists as spies and agents would repeat itself many times around the world.

[BroJoeK]

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August 5, 1942:

• "SS troops in Radom, Poland, shoot 600 older people and children as well as hundreds of other Jews found in hiding places.
  Six thousand Jews from the city's small ghetto and 2,000 from the large ghetto are deported to the Treblinka death camp.

• "The Jewish community at Pilica, Poland, is liquidated."

"Inmates work in a chemical factory at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Manufacturers at the site utilized slave labor to staff their enterprises.
Inmates greatly coveted positions of skilled labor.
Italian author and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi attributed his survival to being a trained chemist.
Levi's skills relieved him of the torturous heavy labor that consumed so many lives."

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