PRESIDENT PLEDGES MANY INVASIONS IN EUROPE, OUSTING FOE FROM CHINA AND ATTACK ON JAPAN (2/13/43)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 2/13/43 | W.H. Lawrence, Bertram D. Hulen, James MacDonald, Ross Munro, Frank L. Kluckhohn, Daniel T. Brigham

[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
Tunisia 1942: Axis Initiative-Situation 14 February 1943, and Operations Since 1 January
Southwest Russia, 1942: Soviet Winter Offensive, Operations, 13 December 1942-18 February 1943
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]

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 13 Feb 43

I am entirely in agreement with your view [about various Anti-Fascist elements in Italy]. There can be no harm in hearing what they have to say, as long as we do not make any commitments. I hope you will bring the matter up again in Cabinet. At any rate, I must inform the President. I have not the slightest doubt that should “Husky” succeed in its early stages the United States will insist, if the opportunity is forthcoming, upon an agreement being made which will put Italy out of the war. I shall support such a movement to the utmost. I am not going to take the responsibility of carrying on this war a day longer than is necessary to achieve full victory.

Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate

[Homer_J_Simpson]

According to my list there are no changes from last week, but the etherington daily log below says “I Had the Craziest Dream” is now #1, so maybe my list is off this week.

Billboard Top Ten for the Week of February 13, 1943

#1 - “There Are Such Things” - Tommy Dorsey, with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers
#2 - “I Had the Craziest Dream” - Harry James, with Helen Forrest
#3 - “Moonlight Becomes You” - Bing Crosby
#4 – “Brazil” - Xavier Cugat
#5 - “Why Don’t You Do Right” - Benny Goodman, with Peggy Lee
#6 – “Why Don’t You Fall in Love with Me,” Dinah Shore
#7 - “Moonlight Becomes You” - Glenn Miller, with Skip Nelson and the Modernaires
#8 - “I’ve Heard That Song Before” – Harry James, with Helen Forrest
#9 – “When the Lights Go On Again All Over the World” - Vaughn Monroe
#10 - “Juke Box Saturday Night” - Glenn Miller, with Ray Eberly and the Modernaires

[Homer_J_Simpson]

The index by author on Homer’s profile is now updated through March 15, 1943.

Hard Blows in ’43 (Lawrence) – 2
Text of the President’s Report on the New Allied Plans to Smash Axis – 3-5
War News Summarized – 5
Nazis’ Peril Grows – 6-7
Territory Claims Listed by Russian (Hulen) – 7-8
Wilhelmshaven Raided Hard by R.A.F. in War on U-Boats (MacDonald) – 8
Commandos Raided in Bizerte Region (Munro) – 8-9
Brooklyn Troops in Tunisian Caves (Kluckhohn) – 9
Mussolini Ousts 6 More Officials (Brigham) – 9
Japanese Continue New Guinea Flight – 10
Bombers Set Afire 2 Japanese Bases – 10
Japanese Lost Three Destroyers Taking Officers Off Guadalcanal – 11
Plans of Allies Disappoint China – 12
Mme. Chiang Plans Nation-Wide Tour – 12
The Submarine War-III (by Hanson W. Baldwin) – 13
A Father Gives Another Son to the Navy (photo) – 13
The Texts of the Day’s War Communiques – 14-15
A Japanese Invader Goes Down Off the Aleutian Islands (murky photo) – 15

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/feb1943/f13feb43.htm

Soviet winter offensive continues
Saturday, February 13, 1943 www.onwar.com

Red Army troops near Novocherkassk [photo at link]

On the Eastern Front... The Soviets take Novocherkassk.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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

February 13th, 1943 (SATURDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: HMS Bayntun commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)

FRANCE: The ghost town of Lorient, on the Atlantic coast of France, evacuated by all non-essential personnel last week, was hammered again by the RAF tonight, when 466 planes dropped over 1,000 tons of bombs. The reason for such intense attacks is to deny the port to packs of U-boats using it as a base for attacks on merchant shipping. Around 1,000 sorties are made on Lorient each month at present. St. Nazaire is also targeted, along with the U-boat engine works at Copenhagen, hit by low-level Mosquitoes 17 days ago.

Tonight’s Lorient raid was by Lancaster, Halifax, Wellington and Stirling bombers. Seven are feared lost - three Wellingtons, two Lancasters, a Halifax and a Stirling. Privately, the boss of Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshal Harris, has misgivings about submarine pens as targets: “U-boats using these bases are amply protected by concrete, bomb-proof shelters.”

Early intelligence reports suggest that while the port and city adjoining these shelters are being flattened, the submarines survive. Mining the approaches to their bases, convoy escort missions by aircraft, and raids on inland factories building prefabricated U-boats are all more effective.

GERMANY:
U-280 commissioned

U-322 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.S.R.: Soviet troops retake control of the Rostov-on-Don to Voronezh railway line with the recapture of Novosherkassk.

AUSTRALIA: Blamey (MacArthur’s Commander Allied Land Forces) sees the plans for Elkton I, Allied plan to push Japan out of New Guinea and New Britain, during a meeting with MacArthur in Brisbane. (Michael Mitchell)

PACIFIC OCEAN:
Submarine USS Trigger departs Midway for her 4th war patrol. She is ordered to patrol off Palau.

Submarine USS Scamp arrives at Pearl Harbor. (Dave Shirlaw)

CANADA: Corvette HMCS Chambly completed refit Liverpool , Nova Scotia.

N/S Edna Louise Belden RCN, through the physical danger of blinding snowstorms (during which one plane was lost) Belden, accompanied from St John’s Newfoundland to Toronto, Ontario, two critically burned cases, and two who were helpless, with head and hand burns. Throughout the five days of the trip, originally planned to be a few hours, she showed great nursing skills, resourcefulness in meeting the contingencies of the delays and changes in transportation, devotion to duty and exemplary cheerfulness. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.A.: “I Had The Craziest Dream” by Harry James and his Orchestra with vocal by Helen Forrest reaches Number 1 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in the U.S. The song is from the motion picture “Springtime In The Rockies” starring Betty Grable, John Payne, Carmen Miranda and Cesar Romero. This song, which debuted on the charts on 5 December 1942, was charted for 18 weeks, was Number 1 for 2 weeks and was ranked Number 9 for the year 1943.(Jack McKillop)

Destroyer escort USS Farquhar launched.
Destroyer escort USS Austin commissioned.

Destroyer USS Ordronaux commissioned.

USS SC-1063, SC-1266 and SC-752 commissioned.
USS PC-1086 laid down.

Destroyer escorts USS Ira Jeffery and Poole laid down.

Fleet tug USS Yuma laid down.

USS PCS-1378 laid down.

USS SC-1357 laid down.

(Dave Shirlaw)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-620 sunk NW of Lisbon, Portugal, in position 39.18N, 11.17W, by 5 depth charges from an RAF 202 Sqn Catalina. 47 dead (all hands lost).

During heavy seas U-653 lost an officer overboard. [Oberleutnant zur See Werner Laudon] (Alex Gordon)

U-507 (Type IXC) is sunk n the South Atlantic north-west of Natal, in position 01.38S, 39.52W, by depth charges from a US Catalina aircraft (VP-83/P-10). 54 dead (all hands lost).

Previously, U-507 (along with U-156 and U-506 and Italian submarine Cappellini) took part in the rescue operations after the sinking of SS Laconia in September 1942 off Africa. About 1500 men were saved by these boats and French ships from Dakar (which arrived on Sept 16, 4 days after the sinking). 7 Oct, 1942 One man lost after illness at sea. [Obersteuermann Kurt Warkentin] (Alex Gordon)

[BroJoeK]

---

February 13, 1943:

• February 12: " Three French Jews escape an Auschwitz-bound train at the French frontier, but are recaptured and forced to continue the journey.

• February 13: " A Jewish partisan group active near Bialystok, Poland, and led by Eli Baumats attacks a German police detachment at Lipowy Most, Poland.

• "Russian-born artist Aizik Feder, a onetime student of Matisse, is one of 1,000 Jews deported from Drancy, France, to the Auschwitz death camp. He is among the approximately 690 who are gassed upon arrival at the camp.

• "Amon Leopold Goeth becomes commandant of the Plaszów concentration camp.

• "The Jews of Djerba, Tunisia, are forced to pay ten million francs to the German authorities.

• "The New York Times reports that the Romanian government is offering the Allies Romanian ships to transport 70,000 Jews anywhere the Allies wish.
  A departure tax to cover the transportation costs is all that is required.
  The U.S. State Department dismisses the offer.
  The British Foreign Office rejects the offer, fearing that it is a piece of blackmail that marks the start of Germany and her satellites in Southeastern Europe unloading all of their unwanted nationals (read Jews) on other countries (read the Allies).
  To Britain, Palestine is out of the question as a destination.
  The only way to help the Jews, the Allies maintain, is by an Allied victory; See February 16, 1943."***

"Shlomo Perel, a German Jew by birth, assumed the name Josef Perjell while a student at the Adolf Hitler school in Braunschweig.
Hiding one's Jewish identity was a precarious proposition, especially for males living in a residential facility.
Perel went to great lengths to hide his Jewishness, including an effort to reverse his circumcision, which was at the time clear physical evidence of Jewishness.
Perel's exploits are brilliantly portrayed in the movie Europa, Europa."

"This note, written by Christian woman Maria Dawelec, reads:

"Baptized, Mania and Wanda. Please take care of them."

Dawelec left the note along with two Jewish children in the backyard of a monastery.
The real name of one of the children was Tamy Lavee.
Lavee eventually would be sent to an orphanage in Lódz, Poland, where she would survive the war."

"SS General Theodor Eicke was commandant of the Dachau concentration camp.
Before his death in a plane crash on the Eastern Front on February 16, 1943, he founded and trained the SS Death's Head units and served as inspector general of concentration camps.
Second only to Heinrich Himmler in his influence over the concentration-camp system, he ordered that the ironic phrase Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Will Set You Free) be posted in the concentration camps.
He sought to make SS men hard and merciless; those who did not fit such criteria were to be sent off 'to live in a monastery.' "

"This document calculates the value of work done by prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp.
Detailed records weighed the cost of 'maintaining' human life against the wealth produced by each individual, which suggests that the concentration camps were principally run as slave-labor operations.
Yet, the Nazis' desire to exterminate all Jews often overrode even the most brute sort of economic practicality."

"Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook) led a dissident group of Zionists known in the United States as the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe.
During the war the Bergson group placed ads in newspapers and staged theatrical presentations to educate Americans about the 'Final Solution.'
Their willingness to employ sensationalist tactics to rouse sympathy for Europe's Jews was deplored by the conservative leaders of the American Jewish community."

*** This was also President Roosevelt's policy.

---

[TalonDJ]

I have been following this thread for years. But when I read, "PRESIDENT PLEDGES MANY INVASIONS IN EUROPE, OUSTING FOE FROM CHINA AND ATTACK ON JAPAN" I thought, holycrap I should have listened to the State of the Union address!

[norwaypinesavage]

You beat me to it by five minutes!

[Homer_J_Simpson]

But when I read, "PRESIDENT PLEDGES MANY INVASIONS IN EUROPE, OUSTING FOE FROM CHINA AND ATTACK ON JAPAN" I thought, holycrap I should have listened to the State of the Union address!

He's going to have to kill the sequestration if he wants to go to war on three continents (counting Africa, where we already are at war).

[colorado tanker]

7,425 Japanese-Americans Apply for 1,500 slots with the Army. The training of the Hawaii National Guard troops on the mainland went so well that the War Department reversed its policy against recruiting Japanese-Americans. Along with the existing 100th Infantry Battalion, these volunteers would form the core of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The vast majority of volunteers came from Hawaii, where the government did not intern Japanese-Americans. Relatively few from the mainland volunteered, where Japanese-Americans had been interned.

[fso301]

Interesting p7 article where Stalin claims the Baltic States as Russian. The left was of course fine with that as well as additional Soviet territorial gains while obsessing themselves with anti-western-colonialism for the remainder of the 20th century.

[fso301]

The vast majority of volunteers came from Hawaii, where the government did not intern Japanese-Americans.

Although I seem to recall Roosevelt suspended Posse Comitatus in Hawaii.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Interesting p7 article where Stalin claims the Baltic States as Russian.

That article is sort of an awkward fit with the text of Roosevelt's speech (pg. 4).

"No nation in all the world that is free to make a choice is going to set itself up under a Fascist form of government, or a Nazi form of government or a Japanese warlord form of government. For such forms are the offspring of seizure of power followed by the abridgement of freedom. Therefore (and this is plain logic), the United Nations can properly say of these forms of government, Nazism, Fascism and Japanism, if I may coin a new word, the United Nations can properly say to these forms of government two simple words: 'Never again!'

"For the right of self-determination included in the Atlantic Charter does not carry with it the right of any government anywhere in the world to commit wholesale murder or the right to make slaves of its own people or of any other peoples in the world."

I know it was politically convenient at the time to exempt communism from this statement but I imagine the hypocrisy was not lost on everybody who heard the speech.

[colorado tanker]

Hawaii was under martial law for most of WWII, including the Provost Marshal regulating the Hotel Street hookers.