Posted on 02/11/2013 5:10:52 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
* Four-part series.
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/feb1943/f11feb43.htm
Red Army pushes Germans back
Thursday, February 11, 1943 www.onwar.com
Red Army troops entering a battered town [photo at link]
On the Eastern Front... Soviet General Vatutin’s Southwest Front captures Lozovaya.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
February 11th, 1943 (THURSDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Prime Minister Churchill announced in Commons that when the British, Eighth Army passed into the American sphere it would be subject to General Eisenhower, that General Alexander would be Deputy Commander in Chief. Air Chief Marshall Tedder was to command Mediterranean air operations as well as the air forces in the Middle East, responsible to General Eisenhower. Admiral Cunningham’s command was extended to comprise all cognate operations in the Mediterranean and the Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean would become Commander in Chief of the Levant and the Red Sea. Gen. Sir Henry Maitland Wilson would succeed General Alexander in the Middle East.
Boom defence vessel HMS Barberry launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: RAF bombers start on a campaign of heavy night raids on Wilhelmshaven naval base tonight.
U-969, U-970 launched.
U-962 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Between 1125 and 1145, U-81 shelled and sank three sailing vessels in a convoy, the Husni, Dolphin and Al Kasbanah, 40 miles west of Tripoli. At 1505 the same day, the U-boat sank the Sabah el Kheir with gunfire off Jaffa. (Dave Shirlaw)
INDIAN OCEAN: At 0652, the unescorted Helmspey was torpedoed by U-516 and sunk at 0712 by coup de grâce 11 miles south of Cape St Francis, Cape Colony. Three crewmembers and one gunner were lost. The master, 32 crewmembers, seven gunners and two passengers (naval ratings) were picked up by the SAAF crash launch R-4 and landed at Port Elizabeth. (Dave Shirlaw)
AUSTRALIA: Submarine USS Grampus departs Brisbane for her 6th war patrol. (Dave Shirlaw)
CANADA: Corvette HMS Rosebay (ex-USS Splendor) launched Kingston, Ontario.
U.S.A.: Escort carrier USS White Plains laid down.
USS PC-607 launched.
USS SC-1325 launched.
USS SC-1296 laid down.
Destroyer escort USS Bangust laid down.
Corvette HMCS Hepatica arrived New York for refit. (Dave Shirlaw)
good news like this probably doesn’t have the impact you would think, I think the public have figured out that one major battle is not going to end this war.
"More than 700,000 Jews perished at the Treblinka death camp.
Most came from such major ghettos as Warsaw (250,000 in the summer of 1942) and Bialystok, while others endured (or died during) long train rides from Czechoslovakia, Greece, and other countries.
Deportations to Treblinka ended in May 1943."
'A ship doing between 15 and 22 nautical miles an hour is in their opinion an almost imporrible victime for a U-boat.
And such ships can be built easily in their opinion.
Instead, our Victoryh [Liberty] ships do little better than ten miles and English ships are built to do only eight and nine.'
In fact, those 2,700 Liberty ships maxed at around 13 mph (11.5 knots) on their 2,500 HP engines.
But the US was also building 500 Victory ships, whose 8,500 HP engines drove them to nearly 20 mph (17 knots).
But the first of the faster Victory ships was not delivered until 1944, by which time the U-boat Battle of the Atlantic had been pretty much won by the Allies.
So the need for speed was not so great there.
Still, the Pacific was different, in that longer distances made faster speeds a logistical advantage.
Libery Ship compared to Victory Ship:
Here's another Baldwin quote:
Indeed, Admiral Doenitz's alleged exhortations to his sailors to "Kill! Kill! Kill!" are reminiscent of the ruthless "spurlos versenkt" policy of the first World war."
They are also reminiscent of Adm. Halsey's exhortations to his sailors to "Kill Japs! Kill Japs! Kill more Japs!"
I wonder how much business the “Fruhauf” Clothing Store advertisement generated ?
Robert Clary was a young French Jew at the beginning of WWII. Of twelve members of his family deported, only he survived the camps. Ironically, he played LeBeau in Hogan's Heroes, an inmate in a Nazi prisoner of war camp. Klink and Schultz were also Jews, as was the show's producer.
Near as I can tell, Libertys and Victorys were almost identical, intended to carry 10,000 tons of cargo.
Victorys were a few feet longer, slightly deeper draft, but otherwise the main improvements were much more powerful engines and longer range.
The Victorys higher speed was intended to outrun U-boats, and near as I can tell, only two were sunk by U-boats in the Atlantic, two more by Kamikazes in the Pacific.
I can't find numbers for how many Libertys sank during the war -- or more to the point, during the same period as large numbers of Victorys operated -- but it must have been considerable.
General Burkhalter was too....lived to the ripe old age of 98.
I guess that proves diet and exercise are overrated! :-))
Yep, he even outlived Jack Lalanne, go figure.
I would watch Hogan’s Heroes every day after grade school.
My old man would wander in and watch for a few minutes. Then leave with a laugh and chuckle “Oh those crazy guys”. As a WW II vet I’m partly glad he left me in my innocence - but looking back I sure wish he had told me how things really were.
Although I AM still able to talk with my mom about those times. Interestingly, she did not have much information or knowledge of the Jewish Camps. Only what she saw when she was dragged to Schindler’s List and modern day remembrances. She said during the war and afterwards the plight of the Jews wasn’t in the papers much.
There have been occasional mentions in these pages about deportations of Jews, shootings in Eastern Europe and protests by American Jews about what the Nazis were doing. I think what shocked most people was the revelation of the killing on a industrial scale that was going on in the camps and the extreme cruelty as to the living. Certainly, the American troops who overran camps had no idea what they were running into.
My guess is that the story of the oil being used too fast in city buildings (Page 9) is just a cover, and that a large portion of that oil is being stolen and re-sold.
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