Posted on 12/31/2012 4:46:58 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945
Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate
* Corporal Eoff is considered the top marksman of the group of marksmen. He explains his skill by saying:
“Well, all the boys in Arkansas carry guns from the time they are able to lift them. I used to be pretty good at picking off squirrels with a Marlin 22.”
This was before the “gun culture” got out of hand – HJS.
* Corporal Eoff is considered the top marksman of the group of marksmen. He explains his skill by saying:
“Well, all the boys in Arkansas carry guns from the time they are able to lift them. I used to be pretty good at picking off squirrels with a Marlin 22.”
This was before the “gun culture” got out of hand – HJS.
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1942/dec42/f31dec42.htm
Battle in the Barents Sea
Thursday, December 31, 1942 www.onwar.com
In the Arctic... The Battle of the Barents Sea. The Admiral Hipper and Lutzow approach the convoy independently. The British convoy escort, under Captain Sherbrooke use smoke screens and the threat of torpedo attack to keep the German vessels at an ineffective distance. One British destroyer is sunk and one is severely damaged. Admiral Burnett’s cruisers intervene during the third interception attempt by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, damaging the ship and sinking a German destroyer. The German force then withdraws. They have been hampered by instructions to not risk serious damage to their ships and have consequently lacked initiative.
On the Eastern Front... Troops of the Soviet 5th Shock Army, driving southwest from Nizhne Chirskaya, push the Germans from Tormosin. Army Detachment Hollidt, covering this frontage, is incapable of halting such attacks.
In Tokyo... The Japanese High Command decides to evacuate Guadalcanal in the Soloman Islands.
In North Africa... A Free French force under General Leclerc advances from Chad into the South Fezzan in Libya. They intend to continue pushing north to link up with the British 8th Army.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
December 31st, 1942 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: A new navigation device is entering RAF Bomber Command service. This is “Oboe”, which has been installed in Mosquitoes of 105 Squadron of the Pathfinder Force. Originally developed from the German Lorenz beams, it first had operational trials against the SCHARNHORST and GNEISENAU at Brest in December 1941, but was found to be unreliable. Now refined, it was used by 105 Squadron in an attack on a power station at Lutterdale in Holland on the night of 20-21 December. It will be used again tonight against Dusseldorf and a fighter base in Belgium.
Escort carrier HMS Empress launched.
Minesweeper HMS Octavia launched.
Frigate HMCS (ex-HMS) Meon laid down Glasgow, Scotland.
Frigate HMCS Ribble (ex-HMS Ribble, ex-HMS Duddon) laid down.
Submarines HMS Ultor and Truculent commissioned.
Submarine HMS Trump laid down.
Destroyer HMS Volage laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
BELGIUM: During the day, two RAF Bomber Command Mosquitos bomb the marshalling yard at Mons. (Jack McKillop)
During the night of 31 December/1 January, three RAF Bomber Command Oboe Mosquitos are sent to attack the German night-fighter control room at Florennes Airfield.. Two Mosquitos operate their Oboe equipment satisfactorily and dropped six high-explosive bombs from 28,000 feet (8 534 meters) through 10/10ths cloud cover. The results are not known. (Jack McKillop)
FRANCE: During the day, two RAF Bomber Command Mosquitos bomb the marshalling yard (M/Y) at Raismes while one each bombs the M/Ys at Lille and Monceay-sur-Sambre. (Jack McKillop)
During the night of 31 December/1 January, RAF Bomber Command dispatches 29 aircraft on minelaying mission off Bay of Biscay ports: nine lay mines in the Gironde Estuary; four each lay mines off La Pallice, Lorient and St. Nazaire; and three lay mines off Brest. One Wellington is lost off La Pallice. Four aircraft drop leaflets over Orleans while two drop leaflets over Limoges. (Jack McKillop)
GERMANY: Berlin: Germans end the year in a mood of foreboding, which is reflected in Goebbels’s weekly newspaper article. “Wherever we look we see mountains of problems ... Everywhere the path ascends at a steep and dangerous angle and nowhere is there a shady spot where we may stay and rest.” A two-day meeting of his propaganda officials has been followed by newspaper articles speaking of setbacks for the Axis forces. Count Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian foreign minister, found the Germans in low spirits when he visited the Fuhrer’s HQ. “The atmosphere is heavy, “ he noted. “No one tries to conceal from me the unhappiness over war news.”
Rastenburg: Himmler tells Hitler that during August and September 363,211 Jews were “executed” in occupied Europe.
During the night of 31 December/1 January, RAF Bomber Command dispatches eight Lancasters and two Oboe Mosquitos of the Pathfinder Force to Düsseldorf; nine aircraft bomb the target with the loss of one Lancaster. This is a trial raid, with the Mosquitos dropping target markers by Oboe for the small Lancaster force. Only one Mosquito is able to use Oboe. The Düsseldorf report shows that, out of nine recorded bombing incidents, six are at industrial premises, though no serious damage is caused. Ten civilians and two Flak soldiers are killed, 34 people are injured and seven more are classified as missing. (Jack McKillop)
U-295, U-1001, U-1165 laid down.
U-388, U-955 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
POLAND: Poniatowa: 18,000 Soviet PoWs have died this month of starvation.
U.S.S.R.: The Soviet 5th Shock Army drives southwest from Nizhne Chirskaya and retakes Tormosin. German Army Detachment Hollidt is rendered impotent to stop these attacks.
The year is ending on a high note for the Red Army. The great victory at Stalingrad is almost complete, with the survivors of Paulus’s army dying of cold, hunger and typhus in the ruins of the city which they sought to capture.
Kotelnikovo, von Manstein’s base for the attempt to relieve the city, fell yesterday, and now the whole German position in the Caucasus is threatened as the Russians sweep south. Meanwhile General Zhukov, the architect of the Stalingrad victory, has moved back to Leningrad. Having organized the resistance there a year ago, he has now been ordered by Stalin to break the German siege.
Moscow: The USSR claims that 175,000 German troops have been killed in the last six weeks of fighting.
Soviet Navy records four submarine losses during the month that are not listed by day - L-24 Black Sea Fleet off Shabler Cape M-31 Black Sea Fleet Zhebriany Bay (sunk by German aircraft south of Cape Takil); Shch-212 Black Sea Fleet off Sinop Cape (gasoline explosion at Sevastopol); M-72 Baltic Fleet Leningrad. (Dave Shirlaw)
BARENTS SEA: The battle continues. Early this morning, the British ships are in four groups (1-4). The main convoy (1) with five remaining 4-inch (10.2 centimetre) or 4.7-inch (11.9 centimetre) destroyers HMS Achates (H 12), Onslow (G 17), Obdurate (G 39), Obedient (G 48) and Orwell (G 98) heads due east. (Some of the escort and merchantmen have been scattered by gales and never regain the convoy). (2) Northeast of the convoy, detached minesweeper HMS Bramble (J 11) is searching for missing ships. The 6-inch light cruisers HMS Jamaica and Sheffield (3) cover to the north and further north still a straggling merchant ship and escorting trawler (4) try to reach the convoy. At about 0930 hours, the action starts with the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper’s three destroyers heading north across the rear of the convoy, and opening fire on the destroyer HMS Obdurate off northern Norway about 259 nautical miles (479 kilometres) north-northwest of Murmansk, U.S.S.R., in position 73N, 29E. The convoy later turns as planned, but south towards the armoured ship Lutzow
Convoy JW-51B, the first bound for Murmansk for three months, had been scattered by heavy gales when it was spotted by a U-boat. The German ships sailed to intercept, but Captain Robert St. Vincent Sherbrooke (1901-72), in the destroyer HMS ONSLOW, has other ideas.
When the enemy was sighted soon after 9am Sherbrooke led four destroyers of the escort out to attack. Mindful of Hitler’s orders not to risk losing the big ships, Vice-Admiral Kummtez ordered his force to turn away, but not before the ADMIRAL HIPPER had severely damaged HMS ONSLOW with her 8-inch guns. Sherbrooke was hit in the face by a splinter, leaving his left eye hanging down his cheek. But he continued to direct the battle until Lt-Cdr Kinloch in HMS OBEDIENT took over. Sherbrooke was later awarded the Victoria Cross.
The action then became confused, but the escort behaved like terriers and drove off the much superior force, though not before the destroyer HMS ACHATES and the minesweeper, HMS BRAMBLE, had been sunk. Achates being hit by Hipper. In the initial attack, the captain and 40 of Achates crew are killed, but Lieutenant Peyton-Jones takes over command and maintains her position, laying a smokescreen to cover the escaping convoy, until finally the ship loses all power and sinks. 81 survivors are picked up by SS Northern Gem just as Achates capsizes. But the ADMIRAL HIPPER was also damaged and a German destroyer sunk. The convoy, with its cargo of 202 tanks, 2,046 vehicles, 87 fighters, 33 bombers, 11,500 tons of aviation spirit and 54,321 tons of others supplies for Russia, is pressing ahead otherwise unscathed. (Alex Gordon)(108)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Submarine HMS P-311, only unnamed T-class boat, was due to have been named Tutankhamen. Fitted to carry 2 human torpedoes (Chariots). Lost while engaged in Operation Principle, Chariot attack on Italian cruisers at La Maddalena. Left Scotland in November 1942 with sister-boats Thunderbolt and Trooper after addition of human torpedo deck-mounted watertight containers, direct for Malta. From there, sailed with two Chariots for Operation “”Principle””. Last signal today from position 38-10’N, 11-30’E. Probably sunk by Italian mines in the approaches to Maddalena. Italians claimed sunk by torpedo boat ‘Partenope’ on 29th - two days before her last signal; lost with all hands.
U-561 fired a four-torpedo fan at an enemy destroyer, but all missed. (Dave Shirlaw)
NORTH AFRICA: Not since the worst months of the Somme have armies fought in such conditions. For raw Americans, seasoned Britons, reluctant French and the Germans and Italians across the line, the worst enemy is clinging, clawing mud as the rain turns the terrain into a vast quagmire. Operation Torch was to be a fast mobile operation. Instead it has become trench warfare with both sides bogged down.
With Rommel retreating from the east and substantial reinforcements arriving from Europe, Lt-Gen Eisenhower is planning to block Rommel’s supply lines with American troops.
TUNISIA: Eleven USAAF Ninth Air Force B-24 Liberators, including RAF (B-24) Liberators, bomb shipping and the dock area at Sfax with good results. (Jack McKillop)
USAAF Twelfth Air Force light bombers, with fighter escort, make two attacks on Sousse, bombing the railroad yards and docks. Eighteen escorted B-17 Flying Fortresses hit the harbour area of Sfax while B-26 Marauders, with fighter escort, hit the airfield area at Gabes and shipping and rail bridges in the Bizerte-Tunis area. P-38 Lightnings and P-40s, flying reconnaissance, destroy several vehicles. (Jack McKillop)
LIBYA: French soldiers from Chad, under Brigadier General Philippe Leclerc, military commander of Chad, advance into south Fezzan intending to join up with the British Eighth Army.
BURMA: USAAF Tenth Air Force P-40s on armed reconnaissance hit railroad targets of opportunity from Naba to Pinbaw. (Jack McKillop)
JAPAN: Emperor Hirohito is presented with the finalized plan to withdraw from Guadalcanal, and pull back the beleaguered garrison to New Georgia. He informs Nagano and Sugiyama that he will issue an Imperial Prescript to acknowledge the heroic sacrifices of his soldiers and sailors.
NEW GUINEA: The Urbana Force (two battalions of the U.S. 126th and 128th Infantry Regiments, 32d Infantry Division) begins envelopment of Buna Mission. Company E, 127th Infantry Regiment, and Company F, 128th Infantry Regiment, cross the shallows east of Buna Village before dawn and, although the Japanese offer strong opposition upon being alerted, advance about 200 yards (183 meters) along the spit extending from Buna Mission. Other elements of the Urbana Force maintain pressure on the Japanese from the southeast and finish clearing Government Gardens, but the Japanese retain positions in the swamp north of the gardens. Patrol contact is made between the Urbana Force and Warren Force (based on U.S. 128th Infantry Regiment, 32d Infantry Division). The Warren Force finishes regrouping. The fresh Australian 2/12th Battalion, 18th Brigade, 7th Division, is disposed on the left, 3d Battalion of the U.S. 128th Infantry Regiment in the centre, and the Australian 2/10th Battalion, 1 8th Brigade, on the right. With the arrival of additional cargo at Oro Bay by sea, supplies moved in this manner since the first vessel arrived on 11 December total some 4,000 tons (3 629 metric tonnes). (Jack McKillop)
USAAF Fifth Air Force A-20 Havocs strafe forces in the Sanananda and Giruwa area and along the Amboga River. B-26 Marauders pound forces on the north shore of the Markham River near its mouth, while A-20 Havocs strafe parked aircraft at Lae. (Jack McKillop)
BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO: On New Britain Islands, USAAF Fifth Air Force B-24 Liberators operating singly, bomb Gasmata Airfield and attack shipping in Wide Bay and Saint George Channel. (Jack McKillop)
Aircraft flying over Rabaul on New Britain Island note 21 Japanese warships and 70 merchant vessels in the harbour, the largest concentration of Japanese ships ever seen in the area. (Jack McKillop)
SOLOMON ISLAND: Noumea: Guadalcanal, which the Americans have come to know as “the island of death”, has become the scene of renewed fighting as fresh US infantry begin a campaign to round up or annihilate the enemy and secure the whole island. Major-General Alexander Patch, the commander of the American XIV Corps, plans to take Mount Austen and begin an enveloping movement. A major offensive is to be mounted in the New Year.
Patch’s advance began on 17 December, and by Christmas Eve the Japanese observation post on Mount Austen had fallen. Patch had taken over command of the Guadalcanal garrison on 9 December, relieving Lieutenant-General A. Vandergrift, who had commanded the 1st Marine Division when it landed on Guadalcanal in August 1942. Vandergrift’s original intention was to take Mount Austen. Although this had not been achieved, complete victory is in sight at Guadalcanal, so the 1st Marine Division has been sent to Australia for a well-earned rest.
There are now 50,000 US troops on Guadalcanal, while Japanese strength on the island has dwindled to 25,000 many of whom are sick and hungry. The Japanese are virtually isolated and cannot be adequately supplied or reinforced by their navy. In contrast, the Americans, with substantial air force units based on Henderson Field, are able to supply their garrison and relieve and reinforce it with comparative ease.
The 2d Battalion, 132d Infantry Regiment. Americal Division, reaches Hill 11, east of the Gifu strongpoint, the line of departure for the enveloping movement. (Jack McKillop)
On New Georgia Islands, USAAF B-26 Marauders escorted by P-38 Lightnings and P-39 Airacobras, attack the Munda Airfield. (Jack McKillop)
TERRITORY OF ALASKA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS: Six USAAF Eleventh Air Force B-24 Liberators covered by nine P-38 Lightnings, attack Japanese-held Kiska Island Harbour, and damages a Japanese merchant cargo ship off Kiska.; one of six intercepting Japanese aircraft is probably shot down. A B-25 Mitchell searching for the Navy PBY Catalina missing since yesterday also flies reconnaissance over Semisopochnoi, Segula, Little Sitkin, Gareloi and Amchitka. (Jack McKillop)
U.S.A.: The Dow-Jones Industrial Average finished the year at 119.40 7.61%
up on the year.
Destroyer escorts USS Gantner and Foss laid down
Commissioning of USS Essex, first of new class of aircraft carriers, at Norfolk, VA.
Minesweeper USS Token commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
In San Francisco, California, the midnight curfew puts a damper on New Years’ Eve celebrations. The usual revellers are missing from the traditional gathering spot at Market and Powell Streets. Curfew regulations drove most of the revelry into hotels equipped with blackout curtains. The military lifted off-limits sanctions against eight San Francisco bars and taverns which may again serve liquor to men in uniform. Each bar owner signed an agreement to limit liquor sales to military personnel to between 1700 and 2400 hours. Beer may be sold between 1000 and 2400 hours. (Jack McKillop)
GREENLAND: Wooden buildings of the Fredericksdal construction camp are blown away in a 165 mile per hour (266 kilometre per hour) gale. They are replaced with Quonset huts buried in trenches. Fredericksdal is located on the southern tip of Greenland. (Jack McKillop)
F Co., 128th Inf. is the future home of Homer's father.
The activity in the Aleutians is picking up due to the fact that our ships - including the USS Arthur Middleton - are sailing towards Amchitka. They set sail 2 days prior to Christmas and my Dad’s ship gets a hole knocked in her hull on Jan 12th.
“GREENLAND: Wooden buildings of the Fredericksdal construction camp are blown away in a 165 mile per hour (266 kilometre per hour) gale.”
Talk about an “extreme weather event”!!
"Events in 1942 illustrate why the Holocaust provokes controversy about the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church.
The church's European network--bishops, diplomats, couriers, priests, and their parishioners--kept the Vatican and Pope Pius XII (pictured) informed about the fate of Europe's Jews.
Nevertheless, responding to reports about deportations and mass killings that occured in 1941 and 1942, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Luigi Maglione regarded the news as unverified if not exaggerated.
"Anxious for papal condemnation of Nazi Germany's treatment of the Jews, the Allies urged Pius XII to support a December 17, 1942, declaration entitled 'German Policy of Extermination of the Jewish Race.'
The Vatican had protested atrocities in general, Cardinal Maglione replied.
He went on to explain, however, that the Pope could not publicly condemn particular atrocities.
"On December 24 Pius XII, in a veiled reference to Jews, lamented the 'hundreds of thousands who through no fault of their own, and sometimes only because of their nation or race, have been consigned to death or slow decline.'
"Disputes about what the Vatican could or should have done during the Holocaust will be clarified but not resolved when its wartime archives are fully opened."
“Well, all the boys in Arkansas carry guns from the time they are able to lift them. I used to be pretty good at picking off squirrels with a Marlin 22.”
My dad taught me to shoot before he taught me to ride a bike. He had a .22 in the kitchen closet with .22 short ammo in the drawer. He hated ground squirrel, of which our yard abounded. It was always “open season,” if we saw one, we were not only allowed, but encouraged to shoot the little bastards.
Did you know that wasps hover in the air for a moment before they light on their nests? My brothers and I had a game, where we would sit about 30 feet from the nest, and try to pick them off with a BB gun during that moment they hovered. We got pretty good at it. Never got chased by them.
An attack on Rabul in 1942 by B-27s? l want some of what the reporter is drinking.
The B-27 program never got off the ground.
They got that right. People are still arguing about it.
It appears to have had fairly advanced vertical landing capability for its time.
:-))
Since shortly after his death in 1958 there has been an ongoing effort to canonize Pope Pius XII.
Father Peter Gumpel, the relator of the Pius XII's cause for canonization, claims that there are already several miracles attributable to Pius XII, including 'one quite extraordinary one'."
Opposition to sainthood for Pius XII comes from people who think he did not act courageously enough during the war, and I am highly sympathetic to that view.
On the other hand, any more "courage" would most likely have resulted in the Pope's capture and martyrdom, and I'm unable to see how that would have improved anything.
Bottom line: this is a matter for Catholics to decide, and since I'm not, my opinion is irrelevant.
I do note the dramatic distinction between Pius and Dietrich Bahnhoeffer, a Protestant who founded the Confessing Church when the major Protestant churches were taken over by the Nazis. He was executed days before his camp was liberated.
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