Posted on 06/14/2013 4:20:24 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/jun1943/f14jun43.htm
Italians give up on Lampione
Monday, June 14, 1943 www.onwar.com
Italian soldiers surrender to the Allies [photo at link].
In the Mediterranean... The Italian-held island of Lampione surrenders to the Allies.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/frame.htm
June 14th, 1943 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: The creation of the Allied Tactical Air Force in the UK is announced.
Escort carrier HMS Pursuer commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: The Italian island of Lampedusa surrenders to the British.
CHINA: Kung-an: Chinese troops today completed mopping-up operations in western Hupeh, recapturing the last towns lost during the Japanese offensive that had been intended to take Changsha, the rice bin of central China, in readiness for a further advance against Chungking, the Chinese Nationalists’ provisional capital. Chinese losses in the six weeks of fighting are estimated at 70,000 - 80,000, compared with Japanese losses of 3,000-4,000. The tide of battle turned two weeks ago when Japanese troops were forced to retreat, fleeing to Kung-an, one of the towns recaptured today. A week before, the enemy advance had been checked at Shih-pai, as 60,000 Japanese massed on the banks if the Chiang river, with the Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, exhorting his men to defend the town as if it were a Chinese Stalingrad.
JAPAN: Tokyo: General Tojo meets the pro-Axis Indian leader Subhas Chandra Bose, who has fled from India by submarine.
AUSTRALIA: A USAAF B-17C Flying Fortress being used as a transport crashes at Bakers Creek in North Queensland soon after take-off from Mackay Aerodrome in Queensland. Of the 41 people on board only one survives making this the worst air disaster in Australian history. The aircraft had been modified to carry passengers and was carrying a crew of six and 35 American service members returning to the war zone at Port Moresby, New Guinea. More... (Mike Yared)
CANADA: Frigate HMCS Coaticook laid down Lauzon Province of Quebec. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that schoolchildren could not be compelled to salute the flag of the United States if doing so would conflict with their religious beliefs. [See 1942] (Jack McKillop)
Ohio: Dale Harriman, registers for the Draft. (Glen Boren)
Destroyer escort USS Brister laid down.
Heavy cruiser USS Macon laid down.
Destroyer USS McDermut laid down.
(Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-564 (Type VIIC) is sunk at 1730hrs northwest of Cape Ortegal, Spain, in position 44.17N, 10.25W, by depth charges from a British Whitley aircraft (10 OTU/G). 28 dead, 18 survivors.
U-334 (Type VIIC) is sunk in the North Atlantic southwest of Iceland, at position 58.16N, 28.20W, by depth charges from the British frigate HMS Jed and the sloop Pelican. 47 dead (all crew lost). (Alex Gordon)
When an RAF 547 Sqn Wellington attacked U-155 in the Bay of Biscay, one man died. [Bootsmaat Heinz Wilke]. Four 307 Polish Sqn Mosquitos then attacked wounding 5 men. U-155 shot down one of the Mosquitos.
A Mosquito attacked U-68 killing 1 and wounding 3 more. U-68 later was given the doctor onboard of U-155 for some medical treatment. [Obergefreiter Hans Schaumburg]. (Dave Shirlaw)
Interesting to see the news of the aerial combat over the Solomons. While the numbers are always inflated, it appears the Americans are gaining the upper hand on the Japanese. A couple of things are happening here.
The Japanese entered the war with an elite corps of army pilots and naval aviators...but they assumed they would live forever. Or that it would be a short war. Their pilot training program was not designed to churn out large numbers of qualified pilots. The Japanese seriously underestimated the rate of combat attrition of pilots. In addition, the Japanese philosophy was “fly till you die” and they did not rotate pilots out of the front lines on a routine basis. Combat fatigue set in and the pilots eventually burned out and assumed a fatalistic attitude, one which was almost guaranteed to become self-fulfilling.
So as the elite corps of pilots was burned out or killed, the Japanese had to scramble to replace them, and got themselves caught in a vicious cycle in order try to keep the force levels up. Rushed into a crash training program, they created flight schools. However, as the pilots at the front were killed, they rushed new pilots out of the training schools before their training was complete. Those pilots did not fare well in combat against well-trained American pilots, and their casualty rate was high. To replace the losses, they dipped into the training schools even earlier...and so on....
In addition, in order to keep the force levels up in the Solomons, the air wings of their carriers have been posted from time to time to land duty at Rabaul. They are getting mauled. Naval aviators have that special skill set needed to put planes down on moving flight decks. They are being wasted in the Solomons. They are also going through the same attritional vicious cycle. In fact, the Japanese are taking a huge risk by doing this. Their carrier force is an empty shell; the hanger decks are empty. When the United States Navy gathers its strength and finally moves in the Central Pacific, the IJN will be powerless to oppose it.
Thanks, henkster!
Those Italians look pretty darn happy to be surrendering!
I wasn’t aware they were using carrier crews for ground duty. I agree - big mistake.
The recent promotion of Admiral Koga after the death of Yamamoto last April will do nothing to change this self defeating policy towards airman training. If anything Koga was more conservative and traditional than Yamamoto was and continued to use the IJN resources piecemeal with no thought of the long term.
Also, I wonder if his heart was really into taking up Yamamoto’s command. In one conversation he is reported to have said that Yamamoto had died at the right time and that he envied him for that. He would suffer the same fate at Yamamoto the following year dying in a plane crash when his flying boat went down in a typhoon.
Good to see you again. I also wonder if his heart was in his command. He never risked his fleet in any significant engagement. When Galvanic comes in November, he will not sortie. Odd that such a timid commander would rise to the top of the IJN.
Yeah. Sorry I don’t post much anymore. I thought things would settle out after this semester, but I was wrong. I’m done with course work and starting comp prep. I got a TA position for this fall, but it wont pay the bills so I will have to continue the other two jobs I’m working as well. Needless to say, I don’t sleep.
There was a definite disconnect between the upper echelon in the IJN and the ship commanders. Koga had very little experience as a fleet commander at all. His short stint as the commander of the China Area Fleet was the only seaborne command he had at all except for another brief command as captain in the early 30s (I think less than a full year). He spent most of his time as either an attache or a member of the General Staff. He really didn’t have any field experience that would have allowed him to place the use of naval assets into its modern context.
The IJN system for chosing career tracks actually promoted this disconnect. Series of tests given at their academies would set the standard for where you would move within the IJN. High scores would end up on the Naval staff track and never spend much time at sea. The next tier down would be battleships, then cruisers, destroyers, ect. There was the possiblity of moving up through the system, but once your track was laid it was rare and moving up across more than one tier was almost impossible. For example, a destroyer captain may end up commanding a cruiser, but it would be unheard of for them to ever come to command a battleship, much less move into a staff position.
The portion shown of this article doesn't say, and I can't really imagine, who would have charged the Pope with "wanting war" or what facts, if any, the charge was based on.
Anyone know?
I'll go back and get the rest of the article on my next news gathering trip to the library.
The reference to claims of the Pope "wanting war" mystify me too, unless some accused him of favoring a communist revolution. Pius is extremely controversial for his wartime remarks, especially concerning what we now call the Holocaust, but I've never heard any accusation that he "wanted" WWII.
colorado tanker: According to the article the Pope was speaking to workers, especially northern workers. In speaking about "revolution" I should think he was talking about a communist revolution. The communist party was strong in Italy before and after the war. The reference to claims of the Pope "wanting war" mystify me too, unless some accused him of favoring a communist revolution. Pius is extremely controversial for his wartime remarks, especially concerning what we now call the Holocaust, but I've never heard any accusation that he "wanted" WWII.
I pinged a few Catholic posters in case they are needed to defend the faith or Pius XII.
In fact, with Catholic soldiers fighting on all sides, and millions of Catholic civilians at risk of Nazi retaliation, the Pope remained publicly "neutral".
At the same time he secretly did what he could to defeat Nazism and help its victims.
That included participation in an earlier generals' plot to overthrow Hitler.
The pope will soon be under threat from a Nazi plot to kidnap and hold him hostage.
If I remember correctly, the plot came to nothing because lower level German officers refused to carry it out.
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