Posted on 08/24/2013 7:04:44 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/aug1943/f24aug43.htm
Himmler appointed Interior Minister
Tuesday, August 24, 1943 www.onwar.com
Heinrich Himmler [photo at link]
In Berlin... Himmler is appointed Minister of the Interior. Neurath resigns as Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. Frisch is designated his replacement.
In Occupied Denmark... There are several bomb incidents in Copenhagen and shipyard strikes.
http://www.etherit.co.uk/frame.htm
August 24th, 1943 (TUESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
The USAAF’s VIII Air Support Command and VIII Bomber Command in England fly missions to France.
- VIII Air Support Command Missions 33A and 33B: B-26B Marauders fly 2 diversions for the VIII Bomber Command B-17s.
- VIII Bomber Command Mission 86 Part I: An air depot and airfields in France are targeted:
1. 110 B-17s are dispatched to the Villacoublay Air Depot; 86 hit the target at 1800-1805 hours; they claim 1-0-1 Luftwaffe aircraft.
2. 42 B-17s are dispatched to the Conches and Evreux/Fauville Airfields; 22 hit the target at 1844-1858 hours; they claim 0-0-2 Luftwaffe aircraft; a B-17 is lost.
3. 35 of 36 B-17s fly a diversion without incident.
- VIII Bomber Command Mission 86 Part II: 85 B-17s, which had flown to North Africa after attacking Regensburg, Germany on 17 August, are dispatched to the Merignac Airfield at Bordeaux; 58 hit the target at 1157-1200 hours; they claim 3-3-10 Luftwaffe aircraft; 3 B-17s are lost.
Nine B-17s return to North Africa after encountering difficulties.
Frigate HMS Fitzroy laid down.
GERMANY: Himmler is appointed as Minister of the Interior. Neurath resigns as Protector of Bohemia and Moravia with Frisch as his replacement.
U-867 launched.
DENMARK: Today and tomorrow there are several bomb incidents in Copenhagen, Denmark and strikes in shipyards, courtesy of the Danish resistance.
U.S.S.R.: Black Sea Fleet and Azov Flotilla: HS “Shkval” - by U-boat gunfire, at Gelenjik area (Sergey Anisimov)(69)
ITALY: Northwest African Tactical Air Force (NATAF) fighter-bombers hit a railroad tunnel and cruiser offshore at Sibari, tracks and buildings at Castrovillari, and the town area at Sibari; and RAF Desert Air Force airplanes strafe motor transport north of Reggio di Calabria and provide withdrawal cover for the NATAF fighter-bombers.
CHINA: 7 B-24 Liberators and 6 B-25 Mitchells of the USAAF’s Fourteenth Air Force, escorted by 22 P-40s and P-38 Lightnings, bomb airfields at Hankow and Wuchang; 4 B-24s are lost; 24 IJA interceptors are claimed shot down.
NEW GUINEA: The Australian 3 Division is replaced by the 5 Division during the final phases of operations against Salamaua. This attack is really a feint; the main objective is Lae and the main body of Australian forces are approaching it from the interior of the island.
U.S. forces continue their operations to capture Dot Inlet.
In the air, USAAF Fifth Air Force B-24s thoroughly pound Wewak and bomb Salamaua while B-25s bomb Larat and barges east of Wotap.
EAST INDIES: Fifth Air Force B-25 Mitchells bomb Larat Island in the Tanimbar Islands of the Netherlands East Indies.
NEW HEBRIDES ISLANDS: The Japanese submarine HIJMS I-25 launches a “Glen” (Yokosuka E14Y, Navy Type 0 Small Reconnaissance Seaplane) to reconnoitre Espiritu Santo Island.
SOLOMON ISLANDS: US Army troops capture Bairoko Harbor on New Georgia ending the battle for the island.
- 25 Thirteenth Air Force B-24s, with fighter escort, bomb Papatura Fa Island and attack the eastern shore of Ringa Cove on New Georgia Island. P-39Airacobras strafe barges at Kakasa on Choiseul Island.
CANADA: The Quadrant Conference between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill and Canadian Prime Minister W.L. MacKenzie King in Quebec City, Quebec, ends. Operation OVERLORD, the invasion of north-western Europe, target date is 1 May 1944, and Operation POINTBLANK, the Combined Bomber Offensive to destroy economic and military power of Germany as a prelude to OVERLORD, shall constitute the primary effort against Germany. Plans for the invasion of Italy are approved, but the forces to be employed are confined to those already allotted by TRIDENT, the U.S.-British conference held in Washington, D.C., USA, in May 1943. Advances against Japan are to be made along both the Central Pacific and the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) route. Action in the Central Pacific is to begin with invasion of Gilberts and Marshalls Islands. In the SWPA, Rabaul on New Britain Island, Bismarck Archipelago, will be neutralized but not captured; New Guinea w ill be neutralized as far west as Wewak; Manus Island in the Admiralty Islands and Kavieng on New Ireland Island, Bismarck Archipelago, are to be secured as bases from which further advances can be supported. A new Allied command, Southeast Asia Command (SEAC), is authorized to simplify command structure in Asia; British Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten is to be Supreme Commander and U.S. Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell will be his deputy. The China Theater is not included in SEAC; as China is an area of U.S. strategic responsibility, General Stilwell is responsible to Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. The North Burma offensive is scheduled to begin in February 1944. President Roosevelt opposed recognition of a DeGaulle government, but Churchill recognizes French General Charles DeGaulle’s National Committee as a wartime ally. Although there was growing unity on military strategy, there was also growing political disunity especially involving Italy.
Corvette HMCS Rimouski completed foc’sle extension refit Liverpool, Nova Scotia.
U.S.A.: The US Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command is redesignated I Bomber Command and reassigned to the First Air Force after the USAAF and US Navy reach an agreement under which the USAAF withdraws from antisubmarine operations.
Destroyer escort USS Brister launched.
Destroyer escorts USS Gillette and Price laid down.
Submarine USS Spot laid down.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Two German submarines are sunk:
- U-134 is sunk in the North Atlantic near Vigo, Spain in position approximately 42.07N, 09.30W by 6 depth charges from an RAF Wellington Mk XIV of No 179 Squadron based at Gibraltar. All 48 men on the U-boat are lost.
- U-185 is sunk in the mid-Atlantic, in position 27.00N, 37.06W, by depth charges from 3 USN TBF Avengers of Composite Squadron Thirteen (VC-13) in the escort aircraft carrier USS Core (CV-13). 22 of the 51 crewmen in the U-boat survive.
Is this the last time Kharov changes hands in the war?
Yes, the Soviets would keep pushing west until they arrived in Washington DC. They found the USA to be more fruitful and evacuated the USSR. The Wermacht was just a minor speed bump after July 1943.
Yes. From now on, the official slogan of the Red Army is: “To the West!”
Stalin has been begging and crying for a “second front” in northwest Europe, meaning the establishment of British and American ground forces. He has discounted the effects of the Allied campaign in the Mediterranean and in the skies over the Reich, even though these campaigns have diverted signficant Axis resources. In a few months the Soviets will have won even more hard victories and crossed the Dneiper River, and it will be clear there will be no “second front” in 1943. Stalin will get his generals together and tell them, basically, “screw the little allies (soyuznichki). We’ll do it alone.” And by then, with Lend Lease, they probably could have.
Hitler was the best General the Russians had. The Once Mighty German Army was pretty much destroyed by this time. But they still were fighting hard all the way to the end.
I always wondered if Hitler would have allowed the Russians to set up a puppet state, like Vichy, how many Russians would have gladly taken up the offer, to escape the Stalinist tyranny?
The Nazis didn’t leave the Russians any choice, but to fight back, even if it was for Comrade Stalin.
Good point. Hitler was ham handed in his treatment of the Ukrainians and that was stupid because they hated Stalin as much if not more than the Germans.
Love these posts.
Yes. When one looks at the objectives of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans were interested in a line from Archangel down the Volga to Stalingrad and the Caspian Sea. Hitler wanted the food and metals of the Ukraine, fish of the Black Sea and oil of the Caucases. The region between the Volga and Urals was generally regarded as German dominated but not necessarily part of the German Reich.
“The Wermacht was just a minor speed bump after July 1943.”
The Russians will pay very dearly over the next 20 months of the war from that “minor speed bump.”
The Germans would have done much better if they had set up a Ukrainian puppet state. But that wasn’t going to happen because it violates a cardinal rule of alternate histories. It’s not a valid alternate history if it requires Hitler to not be Hitler or the Germans to not be the Germans. Barbarossa was a war of racial extermination, and that’s how Hitler conceived it and how his generals pursued it. It wasn’t going to be any other way.
Yep.
Barbarossa was a war of racial extermination, and that’s how Hitler conceived it and how his generals pursued it. It wasn’t going to be any other way.
Most people in the West that are familiar with the German occupation of Western Europe don't understand how different conditions were in the east and that Hitler intended to depopulate the region from Poland to the Volga.
The situation in the Ukraine was not too different from that in Syria. The Ukrainians hated Stalin but quickly came to regard Hitler as an even bigger b@stard and as a result sided with Stalin. In Syria, the Druze, Kurds and Christians may see Assad as a b@stard but they see the islamists as even bigger b@stards and therefore fight for Assad.
All that’s true....but Hitler could have accomplished all of that in due course....first he needed to get rid of Stalin, and had they taken Moscow, there’s a pretty good chance that Stalin would have been kicked out of power by the Russians themselves.
And imagine the best case scenario, the Bolsheviks are out of power and a new regime takes hold in Russia that rallies the people to victory over the Nazis.
I see some Italians decided to stay put in Provence and the Riviera rather than return to Italy. Very wise.
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