COAL MINES CLOSING, DEFYING ROOSEVELT ORDER; PRESIDENT READY TO SEIZE PITS THIS MORNING (5/1/43)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 5/1/43 | Joseph Shaplen, Frank L. Kluckhohn

[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: Final Allied Offensive – 22 April Attack, 3 May Attack, and Exploitation
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 Chief of the Air Staff 1 May 43

I asked Monsieur Maisky last week to explain to me why the Russians had not accepted our twenty squadrons, with their personnel, as proposed in “Velvet”. He replied that they understood about 25,000 men would be required to maintain these squadrons on the British and American scales, and this seemed too great a strain upon their resources in proportion to the fighting assistance that would be obtained. Even at the figure now given me by the Air Ministry of, say, 20,000, it would be 1,000 men per squadron, of which 11,750 would be British.

Please let me have a full explanation of why it is necessary that 11,750 British personnel should be required to man fourteen squadrons. Who made this calculation, and who approved it? How does it compare with air establishments in other quarters?

Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Billboard Top Ten for the Week of May 1, 1943

#1 - “I’ve Heard That Song Before” – Harry James, with Helen Forrest
#2 – “Brazil” - Xavier Cugat
#3 – “That Old Black Magic” - Glenn Miller, with Skip Miller and the Modernaires
#4 - “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” - The Ink Spots
#5 - “As Time Goes By” - Jacque Renard, with unknown vocalist
#6 - “Velvet Moon” - Harry James
#7 – “It Started All Over Again” - Tommy Dorsey, with Frank Sinatra, Pied Pipers
#8 – “You’d be So Nice to Come Home To” - Dinah Shore
#9 - “As Time Goes By” - Rudy Vallee
#10 - “There Are Such Things” - Tommy Dorsey, with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers

[Homer_J_Simpson]

The microfilm for May is fair to good for the most part but I sometimes struggled to get the correct type of paper for the printer. Today’s faint copy is an example of what happens when the wrong paper is used – HJS.

Lewis is Unshaken (by Joseph Shaplen, first-time contributor) – 2-3
War News Summarized – 3
Tunisia Line Afire (Kluckhohn) – 4-5
Stalin Applauds Allies’ Aid; Sees 2d Front and Victory – 5
Yugoslavs Admit War on Partisans – 5
Text of Stalin’s May 1 Order of the Day – 6-7
Red Army Storms Key Kuban Points – 7
Japanese Submarines Attacking ‘In Force’ to East of Australia – 8
The Texts of the Day’s Communiques on the War – 9-10
Tokyo Raiders Still Blasting At the Japanese (photo) – 10

[Homer_J_Simpson]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/may1943/f01may43.htm

Axis defenses in Tunisia still holding
Saturday, May 1, 1943 www.onwar.com

Italian troops defending the line in Tunisia [photo at link].

In Tunisia... US forces complete the occupation of Hill 609 in “Mousetrap Valley.” The Axis defenses hold American attempts to advance further.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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

May 1st, 1943 (SATURDAY)

UNITED KINGDOM: German guns shell Dover for 45 minutes.

London: Noel Coward’s stage tribute to the ordinary Englishman, This Happy Breed, opened last night at the Haymarket. Coward himself played Mr. Gibbons, squire of 17 Sycamore Road, Clapham, south London.

The play was first presented in Blackpool on 21 September last year. Nothing could be further removed from the naval captain whom he portrayed in In Which We Serve. Yet they are connected by a gritty, undemonstrative patriotism which is not taken in by events - the false hopes of Munich, for instance. The Gibbons family lives through the General Strike, the Depression, the Abdication, and the coming of the war with phlegmatic common sense and endurance.

Frigate HMS Duckworth launched. (Dave Shirlaw)

GERMANY: Berlin: The International Medical Commission signs its report on the Katyn massacre, confirming that it took place in 1940 and therefore must have been the work of the Russians.

U-742, U-845, U-1059 commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)

U.S.S.R.: Baltic Fleet and Ladoga Flotilla: (Sergey Anisimov)(69)Submarine loss. “Sch-323” - mined at Morskoi channel (later raised)
NORTH AFRICA: US forces capture Hill 609 in Tunisia.

NEW CALEDONIA: The Americal Division is reorganised as a triangular formation, losing its 51st Infantry Brigade Headquarters (redesignated as HQ and HQ Company, Americal Division) and TF 6814 Headquarters (disbanded). (Yves J. Bellanger)

CANADA: Frigate HMCS Grou laid down Montreal, Province of Quebec.

U.S.A.: The documentary film “Russians at War” is released in the U.S. This 61-minute documentary was compiled from newsreel footage taken by unaccredited Soviet cameramen and shows scenes of life in the Soviet Union during the Winter Campaign of 1941. (Jack McKillop)
Destroyer escort USS Frament laid down.

Destroyer escorts USS Francis M Robinson and Weber launched.

Escort carrier USS Coral Sea launched.

Minesweeper USS Gladiator launched.

Submarine USS Bowfin commissioned.

Destroyer escort USS Burden R Hastings commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)

ATLANTIC OCEAN: At 0030, U-107 fired a spread of two stern torpedoes at the unescorted Port Victor NE of the Azores, which was zigzagging directly into a good firing position in about 1000 meters distance. The ship carried 65 passengers (including 23 women and children) stopped after one torpedo hit amidships and the crew made the lifeboats ready to be launched. After a first coup de grâce hit amidships at 00.36 hours the boats were lowered, but when she was hit in the bow by a second coup de grâce at 0045. Two lifeboats were destroyed and the occupants killed. The vessel developed a list to port but still sent radio messages until being hit underneath the bridge by a third coup de grâce, which broke the ship in two and caused her to sink. Twelve crewmembers, two gunners and five passengers were lost. The master, 74 crewmembers, ten gunners and 60 passengers were picked up by HMS Wren and landed at Liverpool.

SS Adelfotis sunk by U-182 at 03.32S, 21.33W.

U-613 engaged in a gun battle with an RAF 172 Sqn Wellington. The aircraft was damaged in the attack and crash-landed, no fatalities among crew.

At 0540, U-515 attacked Convoy TS-37 for a second time about 75 miles SW of Freetown and fired three single torpedoes. The first hit the City of Singapore after 1 minute 8 seconds in the stern and the ship was observed to burn fiercely before she sank. The second torpedo hit the Mokambo after 1 minute 5 seconds and set her on fire. The third torpedo hit after 35 seconds the Clan MacPherson, which began to sink by the stern. The master, 86 crewmembers and ten gunners from the City of Singapore were picked up by trawlers HMS Arran and Birdlip and landed at Freetown the same day. The Clan MacPherson foundered later in 08°04N/14°12W. Four crewmembers were lost. The master, 126 crewmembers, seven gunners and two naval signalmen were picked up by Arran and landed at Freetown the same day. The Mokambo was badly damaged, but remained afloat. The ship was towed to Freetown roads by the tugs Aimwell and Onana, but capsized on 2 May and sank. Two men were injured of the crew of 51 (27 Belgians, 16 Congolesians and 8 British) and six gunners. (Dave Shirlaw)

[centurion316]

Interesting that today, our current President is the one shutting down the coal industry. Roosevelt clearly understood the relationship between energy and economic activity. Not so much these days.

[Rappini]

HJS, thanks for that reminder. I actually met John L Lewis in 1947 I was 9years old. He was visiting my Uncle who was the President of UAW Local 600 in Dearborn, Michigan.

[BroJoeK]

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May 1, 1943:

• April 30: "Two thousand Jews deported from Wlodawa, Poland, to Sobibór attack the death camp's SS guards on arrival at the unloading ramp.
  All of the Jews are killed by SS machine guns and grenades.

• May 1943: "SS-Gruppenführer Jürgen Stroop completes his official written chronicle of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto: The Stroop Report.

• "Four trains carrying nearly 11,000 Jews arrive at Auschwitz from Salonika, Greece.

• "About 5,000 Sephardic Jews are sent from Occupied Tunisia to labor camps near North African battle zones.

• "In Eastern Europe, the Red Army continues its westward advance.

• "Breckinridge Long and his supporters in the U.S. State Department, including Borden Reams and Robert Alexander, delay the license to transfer Jewish funds intended to be used to allow the escape of 70,000 Jews from Romania (the Riegner Plan).
  These State Department officials worry that the Riegner Plan "might actually succeed."

• "Abrasha Blum, an organizer of armed resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto and a member of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations, is shot by Germans after enduring confinement and torture.

• May 1: "Many members of the Brody, Ukraine, Jewish community are killed at the Majdanek death camp.

• "Jewish writers and artists, inspired by the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, gather in the Vilna (Lithuania) Ghetto for an evening of poetry, with the hopeful theme "Spring in Yiddish Literature."

• "The Allies begin to push the Germans from Tunisia.

• "German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, reacting to the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto revolt, notes in his diary: 'Heavy engagements are being fought there which led even to the Jewish Supreme Command's issuing daily communiques.
  Of course, this fun won't last very long.
  But it shows what is to be expected of the Jews when they are in possession of arms.' "

"Before the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, inhabitants feverishly constructed an elaborate series of bunkers and hideouts to evade their Nazi persecutors.
Once the resistance operations began, the Nazis set fire to the ghetto in an attempt to force the Jews from their bunkers."

"A woman jumps from a balcony to escape the intense heat of the flames and avoid being burned alive."

"A Jewish man is removed from his hidden bunker during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
Even after the ghetto was razed, Jews attempted to hide from the Nazis.
To counter these efforts, SS commander Jürgen Stroop ordered his soldiers to employ whatever means necessary to flush the Jews from their hiding places.
The troops used flamethrowers, gas, and grenades to achieve their goals."

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[Lancey Howard]

I still marvel at the power the communists (unions) had in this country 70 years ago that they could hold the nation over a barrel during wartime.

[henkster]

The Battle of the Atlantic turns this month. Great book about this time period by Michael Gannon entitled “Black May.” The British technical developments in radar and sonar, the use of B-24’s from Iceland and Newfoundland, and the emergence of the escort carrier, will drive the U-Boats out of the North Atlantic by the end of the month.

[colorado tanker]

I noticed the pace of launching destroyer escorts and escort carriers is really picking up.

Only a few Axis leaders get it yet, but the incredible levels of U.S. war production in 1943 will lead directly to the victories in 1944 and, as you point out, to victory in the Battle of the Atlantic in 1943.

[henkster]

The axis leadership was clearly in a state of denial about American industrial capcity. The Japanese knew we were building 10 fleet carriers at the time of Midway while they were only building one. Hitler never grapsed naval warfare and had no clue what American shipyards could turn out, much less what that meant.

In addition to quantity, American ships were also high quality. American warships were tough to kill. This really applies across the board to planes, trucks and yes, even tanks. Amateur historians and Naziphiles poo-poo the Sherman as inferior to the Panther and Tiger. In reality, the Sherman was a good reliable tank effective when used in accordance with American armor doctrine. Soviet tank crews didn’t mind riding them into battle.

When I look at what the Allies produced, I realize that the Axis had no chance of winning the war.

[colorado tanker]

When I look at what the Allies produced, I realize that the Axis had no chance of winning the war.

Totally agree. It also validates the decision not to go to full mobilization to allow adequate staffing for the war industries.