Posted on 08/21/2012 4:48:00 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
More later.
Richard Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/aug42/f21aug42.htm
German army groups advancing
Friday, August 21, 1942 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... German Army Groups A and B, (formerly Army Group South) continue their advances. Army Group A penetrates almost to Norovrossiysk on the Black Sea. Elements of Army Group B cross the Don River near Kletskaya.
In the Solomon Islands... On Guadalcanal, Japanese Colonel Ichiki’s force of 1000 men attack the American positions across the Tenaru River. The American strength and defenses are unexpected and the Japanese force is destroyed. The Marines continue to receive shipments of supplies and some reinforcements.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
August 21st, 1942
UNITED KINGDOM: At Lieutenant General Henry H “Hap” Arnold’s request, Lieutenant General Dwight D Eisenhower gives Major General Carl Spaatz, Commanding General 8th Air Force, additional duties as Air Officer for the European Theater of Operations US Army (ETOUSA) and head of the air section of its staff, thus assuring active participation by the US 8th Air Force in theater planning.
In England, the US 8th Air Force flies Mission 4: 12 B-17 Flying Fortresses are dispatched to the bomb the shipyards at Rotterdam, the Netherlands but the mission is aborted due to an attack by 25 Bf 109s and Fw 190s; the bombers claim 2-5-6 Luftwaffe aircraft; lack of proper coordination with the USAAF Spitfire escorts is a major factor in the failure of the mission.
Light cruiser HMS Bermuda commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
FRANCE: Marshal Petain congratulates the Germans on their defence of French soil during the Allied raid on Dieppe.
GERMANY: U-771, U-853 and 1061 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.S.R.: German Army Group A has reached Novorossiysk on the Black Sea.
Advance units of Army Group B have crossed the Don River near Kletskaya.
German soldiers plant the swastika on top of Mount Elbruz, at 18,000 feet, the highest in the Caucasus.
Black Sea Fleet and Azov Flotilla: Shipping loss: MS “TSch-405 “Vzrivatel”” - by field artillery, close to Eupatoria (later raised) (Sergey Anisimov)(69)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: US Army Middle East Air Force (USAMEAF) B-24s attack a convoy southwest of Crete, claiming 2 ships probably sunk; enemy fighters attack a straggling B-24 and force it to crash land at sea. (Jack McKillop)
SOLOMON ISLANDS: 2nd Btn 1st Marines from dugin positions on the west bank of Alligator Creek on Guadalcanal successfully stop a fanatic attack by 800 IJA soldiers of the 28th Regiment, known as the Ichiki Detachment after its CO, Colonel Ichiki Kiyoano. This battle becomes known to history as “The Battle of the Teneru River” due to the incorrect and incomplete maps used by the Marines.
The battle starts about 0030 with some initial firefights. At 0200, with a green flare, a headlong charge by Ichiki’s 2nd Company begins, led by Col. Kiyoano wrapped in a Rising Sun flag. The Marines with rifles, machine guns and 37mm canister defeat this first attack. It ends with some Japanese actually reaching Marine foxholes and some hand to hand combat. Other attacks follow. Supported by the 75mm artillery of 3rd Btn 11th Marines, they all fail. This battle welcomes the first aircrew of what will become the Cactus Airforce that arrived yesterday. It also marks the first time American soldiers have decisively beaten an attack by the IJA. Jacob Vouza, a native coastwatcher, reaches US lines during the attack. He had been captured by the IJA earlier and after a severe beating and a slit throat left for dead. Vouza survives and is awarded the Silver Star by Vandegrift for his report and appointed Sgt Major in the USMC.
Later in the afternoon the 1st Btn joins 3rd Btn 1st Marines to sweep upmost of the remaining IJA soldiers.
USMC ground troops repulse the Japanese attack across the Ilu River; 700 of the 900 Japanese troops are killed. The Japanese send G4M “Betty” bombers and A6M “Zeke” fighters to attack Henderson Field. The Marines have been warned by coastwatchers and the incoming raid is met by F4F Wildcats of VMF-223. The “Zekes” block the Marines attempt to attack the bombers and the G4Ms bomb Henderson Field; 3 “Zekes” are shot down and 1 F4F and 1 SBD is destroyed.
TERRITORY OF ALASKS: Aleutians: A US 11th Air Force B-24 Liberator trying to fly reconnaissance over Kiska Island aborts due to bad weather.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-506 sank SS City of Wellington. (Dave Shirlaw)
Canada Ping!
Canada Ping!
The official history of the 16th Panzer Division provides a vivid picture of the tank battles of those times.
Strong mobile armored forces were opposite each other. They stalked one another, each side trying to surround and cut off the other. There was no front line proper.
Like destroyers and cruisers at sea, the tank units maneuvered in the endless ocean of sunflowers or the infinite monotony of desert-like sand, fighting for favorable firing positions, cornering the enemy, clinging to villages for a few hours or days, bursting out again, turning back, and again pursuing the enemy. And while these armored forces were getting their teeth into each other in the grass-grown steppe, the cloudless sky above the Don became the scene of brutal fighting between the opposing air forces, with each side trying to strike at the enemy in the numerous gorges which crossed the territory, to blow up his ammunition columns and to set fire to his fuel supplies.
In the sector of Reinisch's combat group alone the Russians employed 200 tanks.
Sixty-seven of them were shot up. The remainder turned tail.
Colonel Krumpen's battle-group was surrounded by the Soviets.
The division switched all available forces to the danger-point.
There were no rearward communications left: the fighting units had to be supplied with fuel from the air. The crisis was averted only by a supreme effort.
On 8th August the spearheads of 16th and 24th Panzer Divisions linked up at Kalach.
The pocket was firmly closed. The ring itself was formed by XIV and XXIV Panzer Corps, as well as XI and LI Infantry Corps.
Inside the pocket were nine Soviet rifle divisions, two motorized and seven armored brigades of the Soviet First Tank Army and the Sixty-second Army. One thousand tanks and armored vehicles as well as 750 guns were captured or destroyed.
At long last another successful battle of encirclement had been fought—the first since the early summer, since the battle of Kharkov.
It was also to be the last of Operation Barbarossa.
It was fought 40 miles from the Volga, and it is worth noting that here, outside the gates of Stalingrad, the officers and men of the Sixth Army once again demonstrated their marked superiority in mobile operations against a numerically far superior enemy.
Once more it was made patent that, provided their material strength was anything like adequate to the fighting conditions, the German formations could deal with any Soviet opposition.
Mopping-up operations in the Kalach area and the capture of bridges and bridgeheads across the Don for the advance on Stalingrad took another fortnight in view of the tough opposition offered by the Soviets.
Meanwhile the 24th Panzer Division and 297th Infantry Division were returned from Sixth Army to Hoth's Fourth Panzer Army.
All the courage of their desperation was of no avail to the Russians. On 16th August the great bridge of Kalach was taken by Second Lieutenant Kleinjohann with units of 3rd Company Engineers Battalion 16 by a daring coup which involved putting out a fire on the bridge.
The damage done to its roadway and sub-structure was quickly repaired.
And now developments followed one another in rapid succession.
On 21st August infantry units of von Seydlitz's Corps—the 76th and 295th Infantry Divisions—crossed the river Don at two points, where it was about 100 yards wide and flowed between steep banks, and established bridgeheads at Luchinskoi and Vertyachiy.
Paulus's plan was clear: he intended to drive a corridor from the Don to the Volga, to block off Stalingrad in the north and then take the city from the south.
Lieutenant-General Hube, originally an infantryman but now a brilliant tank commander, was crouching by the pontoon bridge of Vertyachiy, in the garden of a peasant cottage, together with Lieutenant-Colonel Sieckenius, commanding 2nd Panzer Regiment. Spread out on a little hummock of grass in front of them was a map.
Hube moved his right hand over the sheet.
The left sleeve of his tunic was empty, its end tucked into a pocket.
Hube had lost an arm in World War I. The commander of 16th Panzer Division was the only one-armed tank general in the German Wehrmacht.
"We have here the narrowest point of the neck of land between Don and Volga, just about 40 miles," he was saying.
"The ridge of high ground marked as Hill 137, which Army orders have assigned to us as our route of attack, is ideal ground for armor.
There are no streams or ravines crossing our line of advance. Here's our opportunity to drive a corridor right through the enemy to the Volga in one fell swoop."
Sieckenius nodded.
"The Russians are bound to try to defend this neck of land with everything they've got, Herr General, Indeed, it's an ancient defensive position of theirs.
The Tartar Ditch running across from the Don to the Volga was an ancient defensive rampart against incursions from the north which aimed at the Volga estuary."
Hube traced the Tartar Ditch with his forefinger. He said, "No doubt the Russians will have developed it into an antitank ditch. But we've taken anti-tank ditches before.
The main thing is that it's got to be done fast—quick as lightning, in the usual way."
A dispatch-rider came roaring up on his motor-cycle. He was bringing last-minute orders from Corps for the thrust to the Volga. Hube glanced at the sheet of paper. Then he rose and said, "The balloon goes up at 0430 hours to-morrow, Sieckenius."
The lieutenant-colonel saluted.
Every detail of the attack, with the exception of the time of attack, had been laid down by Army order ever since 17th August. Now they also knew H hour—0430 on 23rd August.
The 16th Panzer Division was to drive through to the east as far as the Volga in one continuous movement, close to the northern boundary of Stalingrad.
The flanks of this bold armored thrust were to be covered on the right by the 60th Motorized Infantry Division from Danzig and on the left by the 3rd Motorized Infantry Division from Brandenburg.
It was an operation entirely to Hübe's taste, entirely in the manner of the armored thrusts of the early days of the war.
To-morrow they would reach Stalingrad.
They would stand on the Volga.
Hube and Sieckenius both realized that Stalingrad and the Volga were the ultimate targets, the easternmost points to be reached. There the offensive war would end (in theory); there Operation Barbarossa would come to its final stop, culminating in victory.
"Till to-morrow, Sieckenius."
"Till to-morrow, Herr General."
Hübe's right hand touched the peak of his cap. Then he turned once more and added, "To-morrow night in Stalingrad."
During the night the 16th Panzer Division moved in a huge column into the bridgehead which 295th Infantry Division had established at Luchinskoy.
Ceaselessly Russian bombers attacked the vital bridge, guided to their target by blazing vehicles. But the Russians were unlucky. The bridge remained intact. About midnight the formations were in position close behind the main fighting-line, in ground providing no cover. The grenadiers immediately dug foxholes for themselves, and for additional safety the armored vehicles were driven on top of them. Throughout the night Soviet artillery and "Stalin's organ-pipes" smothered the bridgehead, about three miles long and one and a half miles deep, with carpet fire. It was not an enjoyable night.
On the morning of 23rd August 1942 the spearheads of 16th Panzer Division crossed the pontoon bridge of Vertyachiy.
On the far side the formations fanned out to form a broad wedge. In front was the Combat Group Sieckenius; behind it, in echelon, the Combat Groups Krumpen and von Arenstorff.
Undeterred by the presence of enemy forces to the right and left of the ridge of high ground, as well as in the small river-courses and ravines, the tanks, armored infantry carriers, and towing vehicles of 16th Panzer Division and the armored units of 3rd and 60th Motorized Infantry Divisions rolled eastward.
Above them droned the armored ground-attack and Stuka formations of VIII Air Corps on their way to Stalingrad.
On their return flight the machines dipped low over the tanks, exuberantly sounding their sirens.
The Soviets tried to halt the German armored thrust along the Tartar Ditch.
It was in vain.
The Russian opposition was overcome and the ancient ditch with its high dykes over-run.
Clearly the Soviets were taken by surprise at the vigorous attack, and—as nearly always in such a situation—lost their heads and were unable to improvise an effective defense against the Germans.
Frequently the penetrations were no more than 150 to 200 yards wide.
General Hube was leading the attack from the command vehicle of the Signals Company, in the foremost line.
In this way he was kept fully informed about the situation at any one moment. And full information was the secret of a successful armored attack.
It was a field day for the signalers—Sergeant Schmidt and Corporals Quenteux and Luckner.
Altogether, they had an important share in the success of the offensive. The signals section of the division dealt with 456 coded radio signals on the first day of the fighting alone.
A particular problem were the Soviet nests of resistance which, commanded by resolute officers and commissars, continued to fight on along the narrow penetrations.
They had to be overcome by a new technique.
Reconnaissance aircraft reported their positions by radio or smoke markers, and individual combat groups would then hive off the main attacking wedge to deal with them.
In the early afternoon the commander in the lead tank called out to his men over his throat microphone: "Over on the right the skyline of Stalingrad."
The tank commanders were all up in their turrets, looking at the long-drawn-out silhouette of the ancient Tsaritsyn, now a modern industrial city extending some 25 miles along the Volga.
Pithead gear, factory smokestacks, tall blocks of buildings, and, farther south in the old city, the onion-topped spires of the cathedrals were towering into the sky. Clouds of smoke were hanging over those parts of the city where Stukas were bombing road intersections and barracks.
The tanks' tracks crunched through the scorched grass of the steppe.
Trails of dust rose up behind the fighting vehicles. The leading tanks of Strachwitz's battalion were making for the northern suburbs of Spartakovka, Rynok, and Latashinka.
Suddenly, as if by some secret command, an artillery salvo came from the outskirts of the city—Soviet heavy flak inaugurating the defensive battle of Stalingrad.
Strachwitz's battalion fought down gun after gun—thirty-seven emplacements in all.
One direct hit after another was scored against the emplacements, and the guns together with their crews were shattered.
Strangely enough, the battalion suffered hardly any losses itself.
The reason why was soon to become plain.
As the Panzer crews penetrated into the smashed gun emplacements they found to their amazement and horror that the crews of the heavy anti-aircraft guns consisted of women—workers from the "Red Barricade" ordnance factory. No doubt they had had some rudimentary training in anti-aircraft defense, but clearly they had no idea of how to use their guns against ground targets.
As 23rd August drew to its end the first German tank reached the high western bank of the Volga close to the suburb of Rynok.
Nearly 300 feet high, the steep bank towered over the river, which was well over a mile wide at that point. The water looked dark from the top. Convoys of tugs and steamers were moving up and down stream. On the far bank glistened the Asian steppe, losing itself into infinity.
Near the river the division formed a hedgehog for the night, hard by the northern edge of the city. Right in the middle of the hedgehog were divisional headquarters.
Wireless-sets hummed; runners came and went. All through the night work continued: positions were being built, mines laid, tanks and equipment serviced, refueled, and restocked with ammunition for the next day's righting, for the battle for the industrial suburbs of Stalingrad North.
The men of 16th Panzer Division were confident of victory and proud of the day's successes; no one as yet suspected that these suburbs and their industrial enterprises would never be entirely conquered. No one suspected that just there, where the first shot had been fired in the battle of Stalingrad, the last one would be fired also.
The division no longer had any contact with the units following behind;
the regiments of 3rd and 60th Motorized Infantry Divisions had not yet come up.
That was hardly surprising, since Hübe's armored thrust to the Volga had covered over 40 miles in a single day.
The objective—the Volga— had been reached; all communications across the 40-mile-wide neck of land between Don and Volga had been cut. The Soviets had clearly been taken entirely by surprise by these developments.
The division's positions came only under random artillery fire during the night.
Maybe Stalingrad would fall the next day, dropping into Hübe's lap like a ripe plum.
Schutzenpanzerwagen halftracks of Panzergruppe Hoth advance on Stalingrad from the south. These halftracks are probably from the Panzergruppe's Motorized infantry Division. The white "K" on the rear of the halftrack denotes that it was formerly attached to Kleist's First Panzer Army, half of which was still fighting in the Caucasus. On the halftrack's left rear is the white tactical symbol of a Panzergrenadier company. Prior to the advance on Stalingrad, Hitler had told Kleist that his Panzergruppen were to be the instrument whereby Germany would be assured of its oil supplies in the Caucasus. At the start of the Stalingrad Campaign it was no more than a name on a map to the men of Panzergruppe Kleist
Photo taken south of Stalingrad on 19th Aug as Hoth reached Abganerovo (probably 29 Infantry Division (Mot)). Schutzenpanzerwagen halftracks continue the advance. Each Panzergrenadier Gruppe (group-squad) was carried in a halftrack. At this time though a Panzer Division possessed one Panzergrenadier Regiment of two battalions, of which only one was equipped with halftracks. The other battalion was transported by light cross-country trucks such as the Krupp-Protze. An Sd.Kfz.251/1 mounted a 7.92mm MG-34 machine gun over the driver's cab. A second mount, without a shield, was fitted in the troop compartment's rear for the group's dismount machine gun. The mount can be seen in the center halftrack, but the group has not mounted it probably expecting to have to soon dismount.
Landser from one of Hoth's Divisions move forward from south of Stalingrad across the hot, dry flat steppes. The steppes here were covered by endless wheat fields. The lack of terrain features made land navigation difficult and units often did not know precisely where they were located.
A Marder II self-propelled antitank gun, or Panzer Selbstfahrlafette 1 fur 7.62cm PaK.36(r) auf Fahrgestell (Sd.Kfz.132) passes an Sd.Kfz.251/1 halftrack. Both of these lightly armored and open topped vehicles would prove to be vulnerable in Stalingrad street fighting. This gun probably belongs to 29th Infantry Division (Mot)
For the first several kilometers after crossing the Don (in the north), Panzer crews and infantrymen saw few enemy. Here Landser follow a StuG III assault gun. This vehicle was armed with a 7.5cm gun. The Landser nicknamed it the "Stug," derived from its StuG abbreviation for Sturmgeschutz. The Landser in the foreground has an aluminum machine gun cartridge case (Patronenkasten 41)with either six 50-round belts or a 300-round belt of 7.92mm ammunition. The standing man carries a metal container on his back holding ten rounds for the 5cm leGrW.36 light mortar.
A column of Pz.Kpfw-111s from Panzergruppe Hoth advance toward~ the Volga during August, Drang nach Osten (Drive to the East). The lead tank is a 5cm gun-armed Pz.Kpfw.III Ausf.N with add-on 30mm armor bolted to the front of the driver's compartment. This additional armor was a lesson learned from North Africa. These tanks were also provided with thin spaced armor on the front, but the obvious bolts indicate the thicker add-on armor.
A staff car belonging to 24th Panzer Division has halted near Stalingrad. On the front left mudguard the vehicle displays tactical symbols for an artillery unit. Note the slotted blackout light covers.
During the last few kilometers before the Volga is reached soldiers of 16th Panzer Division (the main assault division) were unexpectedly barraged by artillery batteries crewed by young girls. The Soviets fielded few female combat units and this instance demonstrated their desperation. Over the distant ridge lays the Volga. In the undergrowth soldiers can be seen peering through their binoculars trying to determine the locations of Soviet positions. In twelve hours the panzers moved thirty-six miles and reached the Volga north of the city while reconnaissance units had reached the suburb of Rynok, where the tramcars were still running. When they had encountered resistance at the Barrikady factory in Rynok, and silenced it with the guns of their tanks, they looked over the carnage of the battle scene. They saw pieces of bodies covered with bits of calico and lace. They had finally discovered why their casualties had been so few. They had been fighting women, the women workers of the factory. Most of the tankers were horrified.
More later.
Richard Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary
It’s interesting to see how the press spins things. Nothing about the hard fighting on Guadalcanal, but the Navy is “mopping up” on islands in the Solomons. The disaster at Dieppe became “heavy casualties” for the Canadians.
Richard Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary
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