Posted on 08/08/2012 4:51:13 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
Richard Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/aug42/f08aug42.htm
German army groups advancing in USSR
Saturday, August 8, 1942 www.onwar.com
German army mules carrying supplies in the Caucasus [photo at link]
On the Eastern Front... German advances continue. Army Group A continues its drive south while consolidating its positions on the Kuban River. Army Group B captures Suronvniko.
In the Solomon Islands... The invasion of Guadalcanal continues as the remainder of the first wave of American troops come ashore. Advancing rapidly inland, they capture the Japanese airstrip intact, renaming it Henderson Field. The missions on Tulagi and Gavutu are completed and the islands captured. Due to Japanese air and submarine attacks, Admiral Fletcher decides to withdraw his carriers, leaving the cruisers and transports near the island. This action is probably a mistake.
From Washington and London... US President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill approve the appointment of American General Eisenhower to command Operation Torch , the proposed Allied invasion of North Africa.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
August 8th, 1942
UNITED KINGDOM: Trawler HMS Anticosti commissioned.
Light cruiser HMS Argonaut commissioned.
Submarine HMS Splendid commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: U-287 laid down.
U-469 and U-470 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.S.R.: Army Group A continues to advance south from the Kuban. Army Group B captures Surovniko.
ARCTIC OCEAN: Soviet submarine “M-173” of the Polar fleet and White Sea Flotillas is sunk - by surface ASW ships, at Varde area. Near Ekkery by UJ 1101, 1108 and 1112 they dropped 178 dDC over it. (Torstein and Sergey Anisimov)(69)
NEW GUINEA: The joint Australian-Papuan Maroubra Force recaptures Kokoda but is unable to hold onto it.
USAAF P-400 Airacobras of the Allied Air Forces dive-bomb Kokoda and Yodda. (Jack McKillop)
AUSTRALIA: Minesweeper HMAS Tamworth commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
SOLOMON ISLANDS: Just after 9.00pm Tulagi and Gavutu fall to the US invaders following heavy fighting.
Admiral Turner continues unloading Marines on Guadalcanal. The unloading is interrupted with another Japanese air strike from Rabaul. The 1st Marines occupy the uncompleted Japanese airfield about 4:00 pm. This field will be renamed Henderson Field for Major Lofton Henderson, a Marine pilot lost at Midway.
Shortly after 6:00 pm Admiral Turner advises Ghormley and Fletcher that TF 61 is withdrawing. Admiral Turner then calls a meeting with Admiral Crutchley, commanding the screening ships and General Vandegrift, aboard the USS McCawley, AP-10 off Lunga Point.
- From this date through 23 August, USAAF B-17 Flying Fortresses fly search missions covering the lower Solomons in order to detect any attempt to make a surprise attack on the forces consolidating the Guadalcanal Island beachhead.
- At 1156 hours, 23 G4M “Betty” bombers armed with torpedoes escorted by 15 A6M “Zeke” fighters arrive from Rabaul. USN F4F Wildcats and an SBD Dauntless and AA fire from the warships shoot down 17 “Bettys” and a “Zeke” but the Japanese severely damage the destroyer USS Jarvis (DD-393) with a torpedo and the transport USS George F Elliott (AP-13), which is hit by a torpedo and a “Zeke.”
- The uncompleted 3,600-foot (1.1 km) long Japanese airfield is captured by the US Marines and is renamed Henderson Field.
- The Marines capture Tulagi, Gavutu and Tanambogo.
- Two of three RAAF Hudsons based at Milne Bay, New Guinea spot a Japanese task force consisting of 4 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers and a destroyer heading for the Solomon Islands. The RAAF crews report in a timely fashion but there is a delay in retransmitting it plus theUSNbrass underestimate the composition of the Japanese force.
- At 1807 hours, Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, commander of the USN’s air and surface forces, recommends to Admiral Ghormley, Commander South Pacific Force, at Noumea, New Caledonia, that the air support force be withdrawn from Guadalcanal. Fletcher, concerned by the large numbers of enemy planes that had attacked today, reported that he had only 78 fighters left (he had started with 99) and that fuel for the carriers was running low. Ghormley approved the recommendation, and the aircraft carriers USS Enterprise (CV-6), USS Saratoga (CV-2) and USS Wasp (CV-7) retire from Guadalcanal. (Jack McKillop)
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: The USAAF’s 11th Air Force dispatches 1 LB-30 and 3 B-24 Liberators, and 8 P-38 Lightnings on photo and bombing missions over Kiska Island cannot attack due to fog but 6USNPBY-5A Catalinas of Patrol Squadron Forty One (VP-41)and VP-51, both based at NAF Dutch Harbor, also operating over and off Kiska Island, hit freighters and a transport, claiming 1 transport sinking, and score many hits on North Head and Main Camp. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: Roosevelt and Churchill agree that command of “Operation Torch” will be vested in General Eisenhower.
Six of the eight German spies that landed on Long Island, New York, and Florida in June are executed in the electric chair at the District of Columbia Jail in Washington, D.C. The other two spies, who turned themselves in to the FBI, were sentenced to 30-years and life imprisonment respectively. Both are released in 1948 by order President Harry S. Truman and returned to Germany. (Jack McKillop)
German submarine U-98 sows mines off the waters of Jacksonville, Florida. (Jack McKillop)
Destroyer USS Burns launched.
Destroyer USS Izard launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Five ships of convoy SC-94 are sunk: one of the escort, the corvette Dianthus, sinks U-379.
The German submarine U-379 is sunk in the North Atlantic southeast of Cape Farewell, Greenland, in position 57.11N, 30.57W, by ramming and depth charges from the RN corvette HMS Dianthus. 5 of the 45 man U-boat crew survive. (Jack McKillop)
U-176 sinks the SS Kelso.
U-176 sank SS Mount Kassion.
U-176 sank SS Trehata.
U-379 sank SS Anneberg.
U-379 sank SS Kaimoku.
(Dave Shirlaw)
"The very young, the very old, and the sick--that is, all those who could not work--were the first Warsaw Jews to be deported to Treblinka.
This July 1942 photograph shows an elderly man waiting to be helped to the deportation center.
The appalling circumstances in the ghetto, coupled with the horrific conditions on the deportation trains, assured that many of those who began the journey died before they reached their destination.
Almost all of the rest were murdered in the camp's gas chambers."
"The first trainload of Jews arrived at Treblinka on July 23, 1942.
From that day until the middle of August, between 5000 and 7000 victims arrived each day to be exterminated in the camp's gas chambers, which used diesel engines to produce lethal carbon monoxide gas.
In total, about 800,000 perished in Treblinka, most of whom first passed through this train station."
Canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1998:
Vatican: Teresa Benedict of the Cross Edith Stein (1891-1942)
EWTN: Edith Stein
You are welcome, and thank you for the report. I am usually eager to start the day with a new post myself. And I am gratified you consider this a great habit instead of a bad one.
Evening bump.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Savo_Island
Mikawa decided to take his fleet north of Buka Island and then down the east coast of Bougainville. The fleet would pause east of Kieta for six hours on the morning of August 8. (This would avoid daytime air attacks during their final approach to Guadalcanal.)[6]:126 Then they would proceed along the dangerous channel known as “The Slot”, hoping that no Allied plane would sight him in the fading light. However, the Japanese fleet was sighted in St George Channel, where their column almost ran into USS S-38, lying in ambush. She was too close to fire torpedoes, but her captain, Lieutenant Commander H.G. Munson, radioed: Two destroyers and three larger ships of unknown type heading one four zero true at high speed eight miles west of Cape St George”[14]:355
Once at Bougainville, Mikawa spread his ships out over a wide area to mask the composition of his force and launched four floatplanes from his cruisers to scout for Allied ships in the southern Solomons.
At 10:20 and 11:10, his ships were spotted by Australian Hudson reconnaissance aircraft based at Milne Bay in New Guinea.[1]:88[15] The first Hudson misidentified them as “three cruisers, three destroyers, and two seaplane tenders”. (Note: Some accounts state that the first Hudson’s crew identified the enemy ships correctly but, the composition of enemy forces was changed from the aircraft crews’ report by intelligence officers in Milne Bay.) The Hudson’s crew tried to report the sighting to the Allied radio station at Fall River, New Guinea. Receiving no acknowledgment, they returned to Milne Bay at 12:42 to ensure that the report was received as soon as possible. The second Hudson also failed to report its sighting by radio, but completed its patrol and landed at Milne Bay at 15:00. It reported sighting “two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and one unknown type”. For unknown reasons, these reports were not relayed to the Allied fleet off Guadalcanal until 18:45 and 21:30, respectively, on August 8.[6]:139–50[16]
Mikawa’s floatplanes returned by 12:00 and reported two groups of Allied ships, one off Guadalcanal and the other off Tulagi. He reassembled his warships and began his run towards Guadalcanal, entering the Slot near Choiseul by 16:00 on August 8. Mikawa communicated the following battle plan to his warships: “On the rush-in we will go from S. (south) of Savo Island and torpedo the enemy main force in front of Guadalcanal anchorage; after which we will turn toward the Tulagi forward area to shell and torpedo the enemy. We will then withdraw north of Savo Island.”[5]:20
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