154 - Guadalcanal - Allies Take the Initiative - WW2 - August 7, 1942
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- čas přidán 6. 08. 2021
- The Axis Forces are on the move on the Eastern Front and in the Caucasus, but this week the Allies begin an offensive of their own: this week come Allied landings and attacks on Guadalcanal and nearby islands, the first American offensive against the Japanese.
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Well, we finally have an Allied offensive in the South Pacific islands. I'm sure we'll see the Japanese response soon enough. We'll have some special episodes about technology and tactics used in the region coming up, as well as some concerning the fighting in the Soviet Union.
We've done a lot of specials, actually, about a variety of things, and to check them out here's the special episodes playlist: czcams.com/play/PLsIk0qF0R1j6TfuWStd-aigrv6HQKk5Ty.html
We've also had a series of gallery specials where we cover several figures of the war as part of a broader topic, to check those out click here: czcams.com/play/PLsIk0qF0R1j5mC23fS7vJOlSK6MtnU7O2.html
I'm really glad you're devoting some special attention to the campaign in the Solomons. Though less well-defined, simple and iconic as the likes of Midway or the Bismarck chase, it is one of the most fascinating, visceral and brutal naval campaigns ever fought.
A snapshot of the battles which take place here sounds like a child's imagination while playing with toy boats in the bath. A picture-postcard tropical South Pacific backdrop. Battles fought in the dead of night, no illumination save for tracer shells, flares and the glow of burning warships. In an age where naval combat had been pushed beyond the horizon, here are ships fighting viciously within pistol shot range, like the age of sail battles from a time long past. No contest between great, floating castles of steel was ever contested on a more vivid tableau
Eastory's maps would be more readable if he were to use the standard NATO symbols for various unit types. I've generally no idea if I'm looking at motorized, mechanized, armoured, cavalry, infantry, or airborne units even though I'm sure his orders of battle indicate all that since he has not merely parent units but also their component unites (e.g. armies and divisions, divisions and regiments/brigades).
Still quite good, but could be even better.
Everywhere, the Axis is on its last lunge and the Allies will finally achieve permanent strategic initiative over the next 4 months. God be praised. The end of the beginning...
what the heck germany took armavir? is that armenian armavir or one i have never heard of?
@@caryblack5985 they need to stop naming cities so close together
Can we just take a moment to admire the mustache of Semyon Budyonny? That thing is glorious.
Is it more glorious than Stalin's mustache?
We deserve a “best facial hair of WW2” special episode
Plot twist; He bought it in a novelty shop. 😁
How could you not surrender to a moustache like that?
@@nozecone Indeed. It terrifies me. 😉
‘This wins them a small refinery... though it’s on fire.’
That pretty much sums up the German effort on the Eastern Front
Ouch! Burn! (literally)
Someone pointed out if the Germans had captured the oil fields in the caucuses, they would have found the well heads sabotaged and all the equipment destroyed. Even when they repaired them, the oil would have to be shipped westward to a refinery and the gasoline shipped East. More logistic problems.
@@657449 I mean, there's really nothing more conducive to scorched earth tactics than oil fields... literally. You set those things on fire and they just keep going. Refineries are hardly any better. It's difficult enough to keep those things from blowing up during peace time.
@@657449 Didn't this channel just do a special episode touching on this? Can't remember if it was last week or the one before, but look for it if you haven't seen it already. Indy said that the Germans had a plan for restoring production there but it was pretty unrealistic because of the issues you mentioned - having to replace everything + distances involved. At least it would have denied them to the Soviets if they did take Baku.
In 1942, Nikolai Baibakov led a team responsible for destroying oil wells and oil-processing installations in the Caucasian region. The mission was assigned personally by Joseph Stalin, who reportedly said: “Comrade Baibakov, Hitler is rushing to the Caucasus. He has announced that if he fails to capture Caucasian oil, he will lose this war. Do whatever you need to make sure no single drop of oil falls into German hands. Keep in mind that if you leave even one ton of oil to Germans, we will shoot you.” After a short pause, Stalin added: “If you destroy the oilfields, but Hitler fails to reach them and we are left without fuel, we will shoot you again.” “You leave me no choice, Comrade Stalin,” was the only thing that Baibakov could utter. “The choice is here,” Stalin muttered and tapped lightly on his head temple.
It's the scale of battle on the Eastern front that boggles the mind. Armies and corps are talked about like they're battalions and divisons.
One battle - Kursk, in '43 - was bigger than most wars in human history in terms of participants.
@@Raskolnikov70 And one could say that the clash of Barbarossa is the biggest single military campaign ever in terms of forces involved^^
Something to remember here is that a Soviet Army was broadly the same.in size as a German or Western allied Corps. Likewise with the Japanese. A front was frequently Similar in size to some Allied or German field armies.
Also the scale of the theatre is immense. The Don bend itself is a massive area of land.
@@darthcalanil5333 not one 'could say', it objectively was by a large stretch
_"In defeat, unbeatable. In victory, unbearable."_
Churchill on Montgomery.
Spoiler: highlighted in a certain operation which came up short of a bridge
@@shaider1982 "One bridge too far" haha
@@shaider1982 Whilst the main bridge was not taken, what's often forgot is the significant advances made.
It should also be noted that the plan was always considered high risk, however some attempt was also deemed worth such risk.
Poles still remember how he treated Sosabowski (him and Browning) after Market Garden
@@scipioafricanus2212 Any British commander would have won the war in North Africa after the First Battle of El Alamein ended in a stalemate. He was just put into command at the right time to earn the victory lap. He didn't speed up the plans for an Allied offensive (this was his supposed job but he couldn't do it faster than Auchinleck had planned). And in Italy the Allies didn't achieve much either. They took land and both sides had to put soldiers there. Montgomery is vastly overrated among Allied commanders (As is Rommel among Axis commanders, btw. His logistics were beyond awful and that is what cost him any chance at success in NA which is why I'm pretty confident in making the statement in my first sentence).
I looked up Saburo Sakai. It's astonishing. The short version is that after his injury he flew 560 nautical miles back to his base with a severe head wound, blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other using volcano peaks as his guide. Upon returning to the airbase at Rabaul he made a full report to his commanding officer before collapsing. He was taken back to Japan where he underwent a lengthy surgery without anesthetic after which he still managed to return to continue fighting the war.
Reading into his life he's a fascinating character and an incredible example of a flying ace.
There was a will to live in that story that's truly astonishing. A lesser man would've just flown to the sea.
I recommend reading Samurai, his autobiography as a fighter pilot during the war. It's a good read but there's a few errors placed there by the co-writer.
@@DanielD727 His injury at the battle was due to mistaking his US target, it was the first time the Japanese saw a TBF Avenger, which has a rear gunner, with a cannon in that position I believe! He flew many hours beyond the normal fuel time for a zero, so he was presumed dead... then landed at his Rabaul home base. A couple years later he was sent out on two suicide attacks, but found no targets so brought his plane back on both... weird right!?
@@TheGunderian not a cannon, but by comparison it might as well have been. Most single engine attack planes carry a single rifle-caliber machinegun to protect their rear. The Avenger uses a turret with a single M2 .50 caliber machinegun, so the increase in defensive firepower is noticeable.
Definitely my kinda guy, wish i could've shared a bottle of Sake with him. or 2. or 10...
Stalingrad, El Alamein, Guadalcanal, we have reached the geographic high tide of the war.
Also Midway two months ago.
@@TheMaxWhoKnewTooMuch - Midway slowed but did not stop the Japanese advance. The Japanese lost no territory in that battle, only ships and airplanes (and precious aircrew). The Allies lacked the resources to capitalize immediately on their victory. That starts now, albeit slowly.
@@danielmocsny5066 some consider it the turning point of the Pacific Theater. Also, they never made it any more east.
(An exception is the Aleutian Islands being the northern most geographic point. But honestly, it's such a side show & remote out there that we didn't bother to respond until like 1943 or so. It's like 'enjoy the world's worst flying weather, also, thanks for the Zero.')
@@danielmocsny5066 Don't overlook the reason the Japanese needed to take Midway. Their whole war plan was to rapidly expand into the Pacific and take a huge defensible area, then sue for peace treating their new empire as a fait accompli. They absolutely had to have Midway as an outpost on their perimeter in order to convince the Americans that trying to retake all that territory wouldn't be worth the cost.
That was their thinking anyway, not saying that the Americans would have felt the same even if the Japanese had achieved all of their goals. IMO the Americans would have kept fighting no matter what.
@@danielmocsny5066 The aircrew lost in Midway was not as bad as people usually think; many pilots were transferred to escorting ships when the order to abandon ship was issued.
The battle that grinded most elite Japanese pilots away was the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands, which the Japanese not only lost more aircrew than they did in Battle of Midway, but many of them were also flight leaders and experienced pilots.
The clashing scale of things is striking--German armies covering tens of kilometers a day in southern Russia to little gain, while US marines struggle to cross an island just a kilometer wide
The difference that the vegetation can make.
This is why wargames and computer games can only go so far in showing the true nature of the war - a battle of hundreds of kilometres in the Caucasus and a battle of yards in the Tractor Factory just north of it.
Crazy to think about
And the strategic significance of those few yards and one incomplete airfield is HUGE to world events.
hope this isn't a dis on the Marines. The ignorance of the nature of war is apparent
This week on August 6 1942, Detroit restaurant owner Max Stephan became the first American to be sentenced to execution for treason since the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 for aiding an escaped German prisoner of war, Luftwaffe pilot Hans Peter Krug. His setence is later commuted to life imprisonment.
He wouldn't be the only US citizen sentenced to death for helping POWs escape. Dale Maple, a serving soldier, was also sentenced to death but it was also commuted. It underlines Eddie Slovik's lack of luck in being sentenced to death and executed for desertion, as Stephan and Maple's offences were arguably worse.
My dad was a citizen soldier, a schoolteacher drafted into the Army. He was stationed in New Guinea and was wounded for the second time at Guadalcanal. Not sure of the timeline. I'm trying to get his war records, but they were destroyed by a fire in the '70s. I understand an effort is being made to recreate them. I hope it's successful. RIP, Dad.
Yes unfortunately a lot of our dads and other relatives military records were destroyed by fire in St. Louis in the early 1970's.
Big respect and RIP for your dad from Russia! I believe and hope, you will be able to restore these records. We must remember and honor the exploits of our fathers and grandfathers.
My grandfather was a fighter pilot on an aircraft carrier and spent time as a POW after being shot down, where he lost most of his hearing when the Japanese burnt out his eardrums with lit matches.
To my knowledge he was shot down on or near New Guinea but he's long gone and we could never get more than fragmentary service records to learn more.
Men like your dad are the true heroes of any war. They answer the call and they serve without hesitation. That's what makes the difference.
@@dataseeker7460 the thing is, my dad was a WW2 veteran- he saw lots of combat (North Atlantic) and he would have scoffed at anyone calling him or his shipmates heroes. A WW2 veteran could be a guy who kept the lights going in Dutch Harbor, tapping away at a typewriter in Washington DC or pulling guard duty on Iceland. Calling them all heroes is a bit of a stretch.
My grandma Sallye Hilton turned seven this week, on August 6th. She died on July 28, 2021. I miss her.
Condolences for your loss.
We'll remember her together!
Thank you Sallye Hilton for all you've done and given this often-harsh world, including Joshua :)
🙏🏻
US fleet at Guadalcanal: "Nice to see our invasions off to a good start"
Admiral Mikawa: *Bravo six going dark*
Yeah, this won't end well. Where is Arleigh Burke when you need him?
Savo Island must've been something insane to witness.
@@GoSlash27 Yeah they don't have radar but have you read the intelligence reports? They've got some very fine torpedoes. I just hope USN admirals have read those reports.
@@Perkelenaattori And equally important, many, many years of practice at perfecting night time torpedo attacks without using radar.
What I’ve realized while watching this series and The Great War is how nothing in history was ever inevitable. When we learn history in school it seems to give the impression that events were set in stone and were always going to happen the way they did. Of course logically we know that isn’t the case but seeing events unfold week by week, you realize just how different everything could have played out. It really can boggle the mind in lots of ways when you look at history in such close detail, like we get with these videos.
Yeah, I've definitely had that feeling a lot too. Looking at things in real time like this really gives a sense of decisions being made and actions taking place "in the present", in the sense that they feel like actual decisions with other possible outcomes, rather than "history" being some rigid thing.
It's waht I like about the week by week format instead of the looking back in hindsight format
One thing is inevitable on the eastern front. Winter is coming.
It's like the difference between weather and climate. You can't predict the weather with accuracy more than a few days out. But you can be confident that winter will be colder on average than summer. Where I live there is usually no single day in January that is hotter than any single day in July. Weather gives you the noise (short term fluctuations), and climate gives you the signal (long term trends).
In WWII, the noise was the ebb and flow of individual battles. The signal was that Hitler decided to declare war on three of the world's largest economies. He would have needed unbelievable luck to overcome his economic disadvantage in what was a war of industrial production. Hitler's only chance was to knock at least one of the UK or USSR out of the war before the USA's military production ramped up. By this time in 1942 it is probably too late. The USA is ramping up and Germany is no longer dominating the battlefield like it did in 1941. Rommel is already stopped in North Africa and losing the logistics race; Paulus is about to get stopped in Stalingrad. The German advances over the next few weeks are just empty calories at this point, a mirage to let Hitler pretend he's still in it.
And if the Axis economic disadvantage wasn't enough, the USA will have the atomic bomb in three years. There's nothing the Axis can do to stop that, or even to become aware of it. If Hitler had been luckier on the battlefield, the best he might have done would have been to delay German defeat long enough to make Berlin the first atomic bomb target.
There are certainly some things that are inevitable. Like, the US and Japan were going to go to war pretty much no matter what, just from an ideological and resource perspective. And, in that war, it is guaranteed that the US will eventually win a war of attrition, and it's guaranteed that the US wouldn't just give up after being punched once, so the US will always beat Japan.
What really is in the balance is who dies, how many die, and how long it takes. The end result of an allied victory is assured, even in 1942 because the Germans and the Japanese don't have the industrial might to win.
But, considering how many people fought in the war, and how many people who survived went on to do important things or birth children who would do important things, and so on and so forth, there is a lot of potential points of flux that would make the modern-day look much different. So I sort of agree.
It's important to keep in mind that the combined US military forces, in the autumn of 1942, are not yet the overpowering juggernaut they will latterly become. Operation Watchtower really is a shoestring operation, and one with no experience to draw on. It's the first offensive, the first big strike back at the rising sun. The learning curve, as we shall see in the coming weeks, is dreadfully steep. And yet, perhaps this improvisational mien, more than any other, is where the Americans come into their own.
We'll also see that the learning curve gets a lot steeper when you add beliefs in one's racial superiority to the mix. Being unable to conceive of an enemy having advantages to one just because of who they are makes it very difficult to adapt to those advantages.
@@j.f.fisher5318 very true, also for the Germans
Well said.
@@j.f.fisher5318 The Japanese Empire had much more racial hatred than the USA.
I’ve studied and watched and learned about all aspects of WW2 over the last 40 odd years and I’ve found you really don’t get much braver than the US marines in the Pacific were ( from UK )
The Guadalcanal map has such an old school feel to it.
Thanks, :) I had to make it from scratch, there weren't any hi res maps with Gavutu + Tanambogo detailed like that.
@@danielweiss7396 I hope the look stays for more of the Pacific campaign. It's cool!
I have to agree as well, nice job on the maps well done.
@@danielweiss7396 Does Eastory still help you guys out with the maps for the eastern front?
Two Tank Armies fielding only fifteen tanks apiece is a bit of a optimistic designation at best.
More like two tank companies.
@@rcgunner7086
15 tanks would literally be 3... "troops" for the US?
I'll have to re-watch The Chieftain to get the right word.
But, basically, no tank ever should be alone - the smallest organizational group was 5 tanks...
After about nine months of the Eastern Front, 15 was roughly the number of tanks Rommel's former Ghost Division had left - it had started Barbarossa with over 200.
In a war of attrition you have to keep feeding new tanks into the meat grinder, or in this case the metal grinder.
The Soviets had infantry divisions with less than 600 men
Saburo Sakai was something of a special figure. Perhaps an idea to do a special on him!
On a patrol with his Zero over Java, just after shooting down an enemy aircraft, Sakai encountered a civilian Dutch Douglas DC-3 flying at low altitude over dense jungle. Sakai initially assumed it was transporting important people and signaled to its pilot to follow him; the pilot did not obey. Sakai descended and approached the DC-3. He then saw a blonde woman and a young child through a window, along with other passengers. The woman reminded him of Mrs. Martin, an American who occasionally had taught him as a child in middle school and had been kind to him. He ignored his orders and flew ahead of the pilot, signaling him to go ahead. The pilot and passengers saluted him. Sakai did not mention the encounter in the aerial combat report.
Years later children of that Blonde woman wanted to know who was the Japanese pilot that let them escape, it was because he never reported it that it took a while to discover that it was Saburo Sakai, a guy who also credited his kills to other pilots that died in action.
Wow.
Indie should make a special on him it would be very interesting to know his full story
I read Samurai, but don't remember that part
A man of honour.
What a legend.
My late father (11-16-19 to 10-17-03) landed with the 1st Marine Division on 8/7/42. He left the island in early November suffering from dysentery, trench mouth, and malaria. I still have his uniform with the Guadalcanal (1st Marine Division) patch hanging in my den. Not a day goes by when I don't think of him...thanks Dad.
Same with my father. 1st Ampib Tractor 1st Marines 1940-1945. He was sent home after Cape Gloucester due his second brother’s death.
"Welcome to Guadalcanal." Ladies and Gentlemen fasten your seatbelts.
They are well on since Barbarossa and Fall Blau.
@@jebatevrana can't wait for the Battle of Manila.
It would be super interesting to learn more on how the Soviets were able to organize, strip down, load and move all their industry in less than a week...right in front of the Gemans and with the Germans with full air superiority.
Also, I have read some on the Brandenburgs (German Special Forces) sent ahead to seize critical factories and infrastructure ahead of the main German advances. Many times in small airborne operations.
According to Nofi and Dunnigan (Dirty Little Secrets of World War 2), the secret is that almost all the new industrial facilities were built in the east during the 30s. Factory evacuations were limited to a fairly small number of well-publicized evacuations that were heavily played up in Soviet propoganda.
@@kemarisite even then, I have been really curious about how you take apart a factory that. Is mounted on concrete, has fluids running underground, poisonous chemicals, etc.
Maybe they were moving factories that made mechanical systems like tanks, trucks, etc.
@@rajeshkanungo6627 You don't move the building. You can make the building everywhere. What you evacuate are the MACHINES and personnel. Yes, they did not evacuate ALL the industry. They did evacuate a significant enough amount that it took time for them to be properly re-setup in the Urals.
And they did it due to having pre war plans for that contingency. They have been working hard at setting up industry in Siberia since they thought that European parts of USSR might become vulnerable, but they also made plans what to do if key plants in the west also become threathened.
And you move the men and materiel with trains. As long as trains are running you can do this, and since Luftwafe was never really been able to seriously crimp Soviet logistics (mostly beceause they focused on tactical support and USSR being LARGE (at this moment MAJOR Luftwafe Air Army assets were up north supporting the grindfest near Klatch.)) you can move a LOT by rail. Plus you have all the rolling stock that is bringing ammunition and would be going empty back to use.
I think Indy made a special episode about it
the german air superiority wasn't full, it was local after poland and the initial border regions of the soviets were taken. The border regions were full of old biplanes (like the Chaika) and similarly outdated equipment. Once the real soviet airforce showed up, the Germans were no longer able to "just have air superiority" wherever they liked- they lost too many planes for that.
Another reason the soviets were able to do this was transport- all those trains and planes that supplied the front also had to get back to where the supplies were. Instead of an empty return voyage they took on factory contents for a bit more fuel use.
And thirdly, the soviets were very good at "Maskirovka" (a little masquerade), which in ww2 was mostly camouflage and deception. They were quite good at making it look like important things were not and useless things were important. Such as at Kursk, where most of the axis preliminary bombing struck only fake airfields at high losses and ~9/10ths of the line around kursk were abandoned by the soviets to reinforce Kursk without the germans noticing, due to heavy use of fake radio traffic and the remaining forces being really active to give the idea of a full division's presence. This meant that a large portion of the german attacks were against hardier targets or useless targets, and thus the advance was slower.
Now would be a good time to watch the first half of the first episode of The Pacific, where they cover the landings of Robert Leckie and the 1st Marines on Guadalcanal on August 7 1942.
mr phua, already 4 comments? ^^
@@Kay2kGer Yeah, there are a lot of events going on this week and likely this will be the trend for this month as well moving forward… 😇
Yes Peaches
"...how f**ked are you?, how f**ked are you? You're truly f**ked now."
Haha yes.
Also watch War and Remembrance which tells a human story of the entire war
Plus there is the movie Sahara about the war in North Africa. Also the English Patient shows the retreat by British and allied forces from Rommel's offensive and then the fight from el Alamein
Drachinefel has an excellent series on the naval battles of Guadalcanal, there is also the mini series (HBO?) The Pacific about fighting on the island.
Also the book Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal by James D. Hornfischer. Indy could just read from the book for 50 episodes and that would be great.
Also this week on August 3 1942, the British launch Operation Pedestal, an operation to send supplies to Malta. Among the naval convoy is the American oiler SS Ohio. Only time will tell if all of the convoy will make it safely to Malta, fingers crossed…
Arguably the Royal Navy and the Fleet Air Arm’s finest hour in the war. While the Malta story exists, there should definitely be a film about this particular convoy.
While the Ohio was American built, it was 100% British owned and crewed. The Brits bought it off the Yanks with plans to put it on Malta convoys because it was the sturdiest and fastest oiler they could find.
Fun fact: American actor Don Adams, best know for playing Maxwell Smart in the comedy "Get Smart", served in the U.S Marines and saw action on Guadalcanal. His time in combat was short-lived as he contracted blackwater fever and was evacuated to New Zealand where he spent more than a year in hospital as blackwater fever has a 90% fatality rate. After he recovered he returned to the U.S as a drill instructor for the rest of the war.
Blackwater fever even caused some fatalities among US troops in the Vietnam War, despite medical improvements.
90% fatality rate? Missed by that much.
@@maddyg3208 Makes Covid sound like a nothing burger.
August 7, 1942 - US Marines land on Guadalcanal.
August 7, 1997 - A little boy is born. That’s me.
Happy Guadalcanal Anniversary from a Birthday boy! Go Marines!
When the Marines landed on Guadalcanal they were equipped the 1903 bolt-action rifle. The top Marine general in Washington had a one-shot-one kill philosophy. So, he had the Marines using the more accurate 1903 rifle rather than the semi-auto Garand.
But, in the Guadalcanal jungle you can't see more than a few feet, so the slightly better accuracy of the 1903 meant nothing.
When the Army came in a few weeks later, the Marines went on a theft rampage of the Army's Garand rifles.
Theft? It's called tactical acquisition!
@@MajesticOak all the same though.
Who was the top marine general? Not sure I believe this story to be honest with you. Sounds like another one of those rumors of military legend that just circulates for no good reason
@@chriscarlone527 I never heard it either; I think it was just that they made do with what they had and the Marines were trained to be fantastic riflemen: _all_ of them, even, for example, the cooks.
I think a lot of this had to do with the fact that there just weren't enough Garands to go around. A lot of guys, even in the Army, would go into the field with just M1917 Enfields because there just weren't enough rifles to go around. It will be almost another year before production caught up with troop training.
And yeah, the Garand showed what it could do to the Japanese in the Philippines. The soldiers there with them made quite a impression on the Japanese.
Budyonny’s mustache is just wonderful.
A Soviet general described Budyenny "A man with big mustache but small brain"
@@merdiolu What a fool. Everyone remembers the power of weaponized facial hair from the Great War.
Guadalcanel: Let's get this party started! Note: By "party" I mean six months of unrelenting hell for both sides.
I'll bring the dip.
@@Raskolnikov70 hell yeah brother
Young private on seeing a camel:"What the hell is that?"
Veteran sergeant:"Don't know what anyone else calls it but I am calling it dinner!"
I'm so happy I caught up in time to see Guadalcanal when it released! As a US Marine vet, I am incredibly humbled by the fortitude of the Marines in the Pacific campaign. I think I'll go watch the first episode of The Pacific later to put this all into perspective.
Thank you to the entire crew who make these videos, and to all the patrons who give willingly for those of us who cant currently. Much love and respect.
-Sean the Green
Dear Vera, it seems a lifetime since we met outside Saint Mary's. This great undertaking for God and country has landed us in a tropical paradise, somewhere in what Jack London refers to as "those terrible Solomons." It is a garden of Eden. The jungle holds both beauty and terror in its depths, most terrible of which is man. We have met the enemy and have learned nothing more about him. I have, however, learned some things about myself. There are things men can do to one another that are sobering to the soul. It is one thing to reconcile these things with God, but another to square it with yourself.
-Robert Leckie
Helmet for My Pillow is a phenomenal memoir
Thanks for that, Peaches.
I know this is not related to the content of the video, but I became a patron a few days ago, and it feels so good to finally get early access to this channel's contents, and I just wanted to express my excitement.
welcome to the army :)
@@Kay2kGer Thanks!
Welcome aboard.! Now grab an oar and let's go raiding!
Welcome to the TimeGhost Army!
@Piarpeggio Welcome to the army! Glad to have you with us!!
I’m a military historian and I want you guys to know these videos that you guys have been doing are fantastic. I have been so impressed with the amount of research and the quality of your videos. I have been telling everyone I know who would care to watch your channel. Thank you so much for making this series it’s really incredible.
Thank you very much for your support!!
I have a feeling we will be revisiting Guadalcanal many times over the next few months.
maybe we should have a sunken warship counter.
Years...
Nah,I'm pretty sure it's just a hit and run raid. The Americans couldn't possibly be on a genuine offensive this soon,they don't even have enough tankers to support their battleships,which have been the basis of their pacific strategy for the entire duration of said strategy.
'I said NO camels!' ...'But Indy.'
4:44 I seriously doubt the details on this map. According to pretty much all major historians on this battle, the Kalach pocket was on the left side of the Don. By this point (7th of August) the 6th army still has NOT crossed the Don. In fact, Paulus won't start his offensive across the Don until much later on the 21st. It goes to show how much of a rough ride the 6th army had had just to reach the city, let alone even start the fight inside.
Time for the famous War Camels of WW2 to make a name for themselves.
ironically, camels originated in the Americas, in South America if my memory serves me, and migrated east across the land bridges that developed across the Bering Straight at various points. Now they are all over Asia and North Africa.
Actually a camel from Soviet Camel corps, "Kuznechik", became famous by following Red Army from Stalingrad to Berlin.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznechik_(camel)
Clyde from Ahab The Arab fame- Ray Stevens
Good to see that the Battle of Tulagi and Gavutu-Tanambogo is covered in detail here. Next, a certain Savo Island awaits…
And oh, with Monty finally in charge of the British Eighth Army, might this be the change needed for the British to start to turn the tide in North Africa?
I heard he likes market gardens
Nah. Im sure he’ll screw up like the previous commanders and Rommel will be celebrating christmas in Cairo this year.
He will fail and get the art of paratrooper dead
Ah, the naval battles of the Guadalcanal, with their "brilliant" USN commanders who do such genius things as assume that japanese torpedoes are less reliable and shorter-ranged than the _unbelievably_ bad american ones, or that the IJN won't dare to go into a night fight against the clearly superior americans...
Oh, and half of them distrust that new-fangled "radar" stuff and ignore its warnings, too.
@@GaldirEonai banzai
Alright the Allies are finally on the offensive in the Pacific!
As an American, the USN is going to become OFFENSIVEly stupid too... though it turns out MacAurther has some role to play in those boondogles too (because of course if stupid is going to happen Dougie MacA is going to get a piece of it.)
But with no experience yet so things will go bad before they get good for the Allies in the Pacific. Japan has been fighting for many years the US has not so they have to learn really quickly over the next few months.
And Monty has arrived to finally sort the 8th army out in north Africa
@Bobb Grimley It's a bit off in the future, but in the 1950's the saying "No more Task Force Smiths" was popular amongst American war planners. The US completely demobilized after WWII, then had to hurredly slap together a force to defend Korea that got its butt handed to it. They finally realized that modern war couldn't be fought by conscripted armies and for better or worse they needed a large professional standing army.
@Bobb Grimley that does not minimize their fighting skill or bravery as we will see in the next few week
I really appreciate the accurate subtitles. Not sure you've always had those. But they are appreciated. I had no idea there were crocodiles on Guadalcanal.
Stay tuned for the battle of "Alligator Creek".
Did the Japanese bring a few babies over as pets and flush them down the toilet once they didn't want them anymore? Sounds like the plot of a horror movie.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History has such an amazing, in-depth explanation of the attack on Tulagi. Truly horrific. God rest the souls of every man who was wasted in this war
12:30 Indy, I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but when you are discussing the invasion of Tulagi, a graphic for the Marine's advance towards the airfield on Guadalcanal is being shown.
My great grandfather received his first of two wounds in the war at Guadalcanal after having survived Pearl Harbor. Looking forward to the upcoming months.
Yikes, was his nickname in his unit 'Lucky' by chance? In any case I doubt the guys who had to fight there were looking forward to it as much as we are.
@@Raskolnikov70 of course, for us its looking forward to it from an educational standpoint
Monty has joined the game.
I always find myself counting down the days and hours until each new episode. Keep up the great work.
I just read about Sakai's flight and honestly what a battle. I have to say that Sakai was a badass. Please everyone read it too as I don't think I can do justice to it by explaining it here in the comments.
Each episode is a damning record of mans inhumanity to man. 17 minutes that encapsulates the lifetime of hurt and loss inflicted on the survivors and so much beauty that will never be.
Thank you WWII veteran for your service, sacrifice, and maintaining our freedom
I love that "I knew all along about Guadalcanal" defense. Isn't knowing and not doing anything about it almost worse than not knowing and getting caught off guard? Sure, it makes you look smarter, but it also makes you look like you have no balls or initiative.
Given your mention of Saburo Sakai, who was injured when encountering the new "Thach Weave" tactic employed by the Americans, maybe a nice idea for a WW2 special would be to discuss the varying combat flight and dogfight tactics employed by each air force and how these evolved throughout the war?
Gotts death is a real what if moment. His plane from near Alamein to cairo was intercepted by half a squadron. Likely some prior knowledge. Monty got his chance but he was a bit weird although most successful generals seem to share that trait.
As morbid as it is Gott being shot down was excellent for the allied war effort. He wasn't a great Corp commander to start with let alone an army commander. But Montys here to sort the 8th army out
Oh he was shot down? Indy's "plane crash" suggested it being an accident to me.
@@BleedingUranium It is an accident only if you remove multiple ME 109's. The German Pilots on returning got congratulated by there Commander, you have killed the Head of the Eight Army. The Italians had broken the US code and could read Major Fellers assigned military attaché to the US embassy in Egypt, reports.
@@benwilson6145 Huh. I wish the episode had actually mentioned this, or at least said "shot down" or similar, rather than having it sound like a random accident.
@@BleedingUranium Agree, its even worse than shot down, they then deliberately staffed the aircraft after it crash landed killing Gott. It was an assassination not a shoot down.
Saburo Sakai pulled off maybe the greatest feat of flying in the history of combat aircraft. His book is a must read.
RE: Saburo Sakai. We hear a lot about German aces and American aces but of few Japanese and Russian aces. No doubt due to the casualty rates. That he survived the war and wrote a book, dying at a ripe old age, reminds us that there were many individuals that were fighting from the first day until the last. Saburo Sakai fighting on both bookend days.
@Mark Hodge: Other than losing an eye and seeing his country burned to the ground in a lost war, Sakai was very fortunate.
An interesting WW2 movie to watch around this week is "Guadalcanal/Leckie" (2010), the first episode of the miniseries The Pacific.
The first episode of this miniseries depicts the first weeks of the Guadalcanal campaign, from the initial landings to the Battle of the Tenaru.
Period covered: August 1942
Historical accuracy: 5/5
IMDB grade: 8.0/10 (8.5/10)
Other: Winner of the Outstanding Miniseries Emmy Award
Very essential to put on some comfy moccasins and light up a nice stogie before watching this episode.
"...and most of the attackers have never seen camels before."
That was a pretty hilarious line. Then I realized I too, have never seen a camel before. LOL
My great grandfather James Zybura (1924-2008) was a member of the Yakima National Guard unit in Washington State from I believe early 1941 to the end of the war. To my knowledge and research his unit merged into the 25th inf div. and fought at Guadalcanal and in the Philippine Campaign. Thank you guys for this.
12:34 the grafic shows Guadalcanal, not Tulagi as mentioned in the speak
Yamamotos 6 months running wild statment proved one month to short. From this day on the Japanese were playing defense.
Addition and subtraction are difficult things. Even some first graders struggle with them.
Here, it is shown as the 6th army's encirclement of soviet forces on the Don in early august happened with panzer spearheads of the 16th and 24th panzers crossing the Don, and meeting east of Kalach. This however is inaccurate, since that encirclement, the Soviet disaster at the Don, happened in the Great Don Bend, on the other side of the river. The 6th army first crossed the Don on august 21st.
man that thumbnail just looks amazing. Props to whoever designed it.
I heard "increased Allied radio activity" and for a minute confusedly wondered why there was nuclear monitoring going on as early as 1942...
Great hint on Sakai. Amazing that he saw the millennium out and sadly passed at the age of 84 - and further that he became a buddhist and sent his daughter to the US to learn English and democracy. Smart guy. [Gotta lurv Wikipedia]
Your relation of the facts is more riveting than documentaries that present full videos of the conflicts they're portraying. Something about explaining the proper context really pulls me in.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the video
Guadalcanal is one short stanza:
And when he gets to heaven,
St. Peter he will tell;
"Another Marine reporting, sir,
I've served my time in hell."
And for every Marine who dies on Guadalcanal, three sailors will die in the waters around it.
In the Vietnam War, Marine Lt. Philip Caputo noted Vietnamese traders selling T-shirts with the inscription "Da Nang - I've served my time in hell".
15 tanks doesn't sound like much of a tank army.
One of the most pivotal weeks of the war…
One of the BEST installments yet! Keep up the great work!
Glad to see Sakai mentioned. I read his biography as a kid, and his war experienced were very fascinating to learn about.
Thank you for such an entertaining and informative series. I only found your channel a few months ago through a friend, and have been catching up from the beginning of the war. Best of luck to you in all your endeavours.
If you’d like to see more if Indy, he also since completed a real time coverage of the entire World War I. He was working with a different set of people on that one (different company, etc.).
Welcome!
Budyonny with an excellent moustache. Let's go Monty time to step up
Marshal Budyonny had by far the best Moustache of the Second World War. From a Russian Documentary on the Marshal, his brother immigrated to the United States. That documentary didn't go any further with that little tidbit of information. It would be interesting to find out what happened to him.
@@GeorgeSemel I recommend you look up to Oka Gorodovikov's, dear Comrade
This is the real reason the USSR won. They remembered what weaponized facial hair was capable of during the Great War. History might have been different if Eberhard von Mackensen (yes, the son of THAT guy) had grown a few whiskers for this fight.
The tides of war continue to turn.
Churchill sure does travel a lot during the war, I always wonder how do they make sure he makes it since whole lot of other officers get famously shot down or die in a plane accidents and the seas aren't exactly safe either.
Some of the stories about how these leaders died or avoided death are unbelievable. Read the saga of the USN destroyer William D. Porter that almost killed FDR. An excerpt from the Task & Purpose article:
"On Nov. 14th, 1943, the four ships were east of Bermuda when the president wanted to test the defenses of the Iowa in the event that they came under an air attack. The crew of the Iowa launched weather balloons to simulate anti-aircraft targets, and fired over 100 guns. In command of the William D. Porter, Walter, wanting to join in on the fun and redeem himself for the Willie Dee’s earlier episodes, sent his men to their battle stations.
Willie Dee’s crew started shooting at the Iowa’s missed balloons that had drifted toward their ship. Down below on the torpedo mounts, the crew was preparing to take practice shots at the Iowa - which was 6,000 yards away. During live torpedo drills, primers, or small explosive charges, are removed for practice, but one of the torpedomen forgot to remove the primer from one of the torpedo tubes. Just as the torpedo officer ordered the fake firing command, a successfully armed and launched torpedo whizzed across the sea, straight toward the Iowa - endangering some of the world’s most influential figures, including Roosevelt.....
The William D. Porter finally decided that it was necessary to break the mandatory silence, and notified the Iowa in the nick of time. When Roosevelt heard that a torpedo was zooming toward him, he asked to be moved with his wheelchair over to the railing so that he could see it. Fearing an assassination plot, the Iowa turned its guns toward the William D. Porter - however, the crisis ended when the torpedo finally detonated as it struck heavy waves created by the Iowa’s increased speed. Walter reportedly answered with a meek “We did it” when pressed. The entire crew was placed under arrest and sent to Bermuda to face trial - the first instance in U.S. Naval history that the entire crew of a ship had been arrested."
This actually happened. In the real world.
taskandpurposeDOTcom/history/wwii-naval-ship-unlucky-almost-killed-fdr/
I think the imperial general staff have read the WWI records of Major Churchill and Major Attlee. So they have no real worries about Major Churchill travelling as much as he wants to.
I've read a couple war biographies concerning the pacific theatre so it's interesting to see what those authors were apart of outside there personal stories, in a "Helmet for My Pillow" I remember one account of the troops finding a stash of Japanese beer and because of the light resistance spent a good time on the beach getting drunk (not that marines need an excuse)
And now the gruelling 6 month campaign begins. Thousands of lives will be lost in the jungles of Guadalcanal and the Ironbottom Sound.
Good old Cactus.
What an outstanding series! I await each week for the next episode.
I've started reading Aleksandr Fadeyev's "The Young Guard", a novel whose action starts in July 1942 as the Germans are driving forward.
6:33
Increased Allied radioactivity, they knew about the nuke?
Radio activity, like activity of people talking on radios
@@coltonpiano7969 I know, I was making a pun...
Its weird to think that in a few weeks on September 1st, that its only half way through the war. And that the much deadlier half of the war is still to come... (At least if you consider WW2 starting in 1939, and not 1937 when Japan invaded China)
Omg, i've been listening to Hardcore history : supernova in the east the last few weeks and all those islands names you mention ! Amazing.
I do hope we will hear a little about the New Zealand Airforce on Guadal Canal. I think it was part of the lend lease arrangement. Quite a small contingent and my father was in the first group of NZers sent to Henderson Field. I think he spent about nine months there but was eventually sent home with malaria. I remember him getting recurring bouts of it when I was a child.
Compared to the USAF, the RNZAF was quite unsophisticated, still with a lot of aircraft with wooden frames and linen covering. My father said the Americans never repaired anything, just replaced it, leaving their junk heaps as a goldmine of spare parts for the New Zealanders.
Like the RAAF and RCAF, the RNZAF had been at war since 1939. On the outbreak of war in Sept 1939 they had 30 new Wellington bombers and their crews working up in the UK. Ready to come back to NZ. These aircraft with their crews and support personnel were immediately made available to the British Government. And became no 75 RNZAF bomber Squadron within the RAF. Other Australian Canadian and New Zealand fighter, fighter bomber and bomber squadrons also served within the RAF structure throughout the war. In the Battle of Britain for instance. While obviously, by far the largest numbers of fighter pilots were British. The 2nd largest contingent were Polish. And NZrs were the 3rd. The RAAF was very active in the Pacific and Asian theatres of war. And 16 RNZAF, fighter, fighter bomber, torpedo, dive bomber and bomber squadrons also served in the South West Pacific campaigns. Along with PBY Catalinas and Dakota (DC3s in civil parlance) transports. And other units served in Asia. A small Airforce by comparison to larger Allies - of course. But overall not quite as unsophisticated as you might think. And in regard to 'wooden and fabric' aircraft. Many Airforces still had them on strength at the beginning of WW 2. Including the USAAF and Navy. Mostly in training, support and 2nd tier reseve roles. While they were modernising. Nevertheless, one of the most famous and effective fighter bombers of WW2 was the 'wooden' Mosquito. As to lend lease, that applied both ways. It was a mutual support and supply agreement between the Allies for the duration of the war. Cheers.
after 12:25 you speak about the landing on Tulagi or Guadalcanal? It shows the map of the later, but sounds like the former.
"Kuznechik", a camel from Soviet Camel corps became famous by following Red Army from Stalingrad to Berlin.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznechik_(camel)
This is all so detailed. Great documentary
It has been awhile since I have watched this series, I missed it and did enjoy this episode. Thank you.
Japan has em on the corner of the ring. This round may be the Pacific's last.
Wait hold on. What's this?? *ITS CHESTY PULLER WITH A CHAIR!!!*
The year of 1942. Where Allied and Axis soldiers deal with the elements. The heat of Russia, the sands of El Alamein, and the tropical humidity of Guadalcanal. These battles are the turning points of the war. Only one will win.
Saburo Sakai definitely needs his own video. Even as American, I recognize he was a very noble foe worthy of great respect for what he accomplished. He almost single handled changed the course of history when fired at the plane Lydon B Johnson was in. He could have prevented the Vietnam War.
Great Stug life photo. Depicting the short barrel version and the upgunned model. This series is always a welcome sight in my feed. It really drives home how desperate and in the balance things were at the time.
The Americans are invading in South Pacific? What happened to Germany first?
Admiral King is a little less angry today.
Planning for the Torch landings is sorta-kinda aiming at Germany.....
Europe was still getting the lion's share of the resources. Marines were the world experts on amphibious invasions so it had been decided to use them mostly in the Pacific, but there was only the one division of them currently available, and something like 3/4 of the US Army units deployed overseas in 1942 went to Europe. And Operation Watchtower was undertaken because it was felt that it would be a mistake to let the initiative generated by the stunning victory and Midway go to waste.
Guadalcanal, I don't see this being that brutal
... just need a little mosquito repellent and some beach chairs... and some of those tropical drinks with the umbrellas...
@@robertkras5162 yup. Not at all like charging across the causeway that connects Gavutu to Tanambogo.
Waiting a entire week is so painful
August 7, 1942.
Private James Smith of the 1st Marine Division lands on the northern coast of Guadalcanal today. This is the beginning of what will become a several month campaign of horror and misery. He meets no resistance on the first day. He doesn’t know what to expect from the experience of combat, but he knows one thing. When the bullets start flying, he’ll be glad to be a marine.
Sergeant Hans Schmidt of the 3rd Motorised Infantry Division helps encircle Kalach-on-Don as fuel begins to trickle back into the trucks and panzers of the 6th Army. Stalingrad is now so close he can taste it. He has no idea that the most apocalyptic battle in human history is about to begin.
1 August 1942
Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico : German submarine U-155 torpedoed and sank Dutch cargo ship Kentar at 0220 hours (17 were killed, 62 survived) and British cargo ship Clan MacNaughton at 1800 hours (5 were killed, 77 survived) southeast of Barbados. 100 miles east of Trinidad, Italian submarine Tazzoli torpedoed and sank Greek cargo ship Kastor; 4 were killed, 31 survived.
Arctic Ocean : German submarine U-601 received orders to go into the Kara Sea as a part of Operation Wunderland. En route, she would intercept , torpedo and sink Soviet transport Krestyanin with one torpedo, killing seven.
El Alamein , Egypt : General Auchinleck , CiC Middle East and Eighth Army commander produced his own Appreciation, which was much more offensively minded than Dorman-Smith’s earlier one. Accepting that Eighth Army could not mount a large-scale offensive until at least mid-September, there were ways it could carry the fight to the enemy and maintain the initiative. The Object spelled out in Auchinleck’s Appreciation made this clear:
OBJECT : While Eighth Army is on the defensive, to cause the greatest possible loss to the enemy and to disturb his plans. Auchinleck envisioned this pressure being applied to Panzer Army Afrika through a series of raids mounted by mobile elements of Eighth Army, but also using the Long Range Desert Group, the Royal Navy, and the Desert Air Force. As Auchinleck made clear: “Our policy should be to harass the enemy by all possible means (moral as well as physical), so as to keep him stretched and impede his preparation for attack. All this while keeping ourselves concentrated.” Both corps of Eighth Army were to prepare large-scale raids which would be activated if Rommel made the mistake of deploying Italian infantry in vulnerable locations. However, Auchinleck’s plans looked beyond Eighth Army operations. A whole series of raids would be mounted through the use of combined forces15 at the disposal of General Headquarters Middle East. The Royal Navy, in conjunction with the Directorate of Combined Operations, would prepare raids on the coastal flank and the Long Range Desert Group, along with all the other ‘private armies’, would mount raids from the Qattara Depression. The Desert Air Force would play a key part in all of these projected operations to damage the Axis rear areas and lines of communication.
This strategic idea , although showed that Auchinleck lost none of his offensive spirit , displayed that Auk still could not get that commando raids in large scale raids were no raid at all but planning for failure (his naval raid idea above would lead Operation Agreement in 15th September that caused a huge fiasco and defeat for Royal Navy due to large forces allocated to raiding to Tobruk from sea) and even worse Auchinleck still did not learn from his previous mistakes , still committing and deploying his forces piecementally in smaller detachments only to be crushed one by one again piecementally despite paying lip service to concentrating them.
Besides Eighth Army had barely strength left for a defensive battle that moment let alone stage an offensive operation. General Gott had no illusions as to the capability of 13th Corps, which was currently composed of an under-strength infantry division and an armoured division made up of 4th and 22nd Armoured Brigade and 7th Motor Brigade. He commented wryly, ‘These forces are barely sufficient to hold the present corps front. No opportunity to train or prepare these forces for offensive operations.’ He estimated that facing him were 30,000 men and 250 tanks, and he calculated that this force could be ready to attack 13th Corps by 15 August - just two weeks away.
Brigadier Charles Richardson from Eighth Army HQ has painted a bleak picture of Auchinleck at the end of July: “When I observed him, day after day, sitting in the sand spending long hours staring through binoculars at the distant void horizon I asked myself: ‘Has he anything left to offer ?”
Mediterranean Sea : German submarine U-77 sank Egyptian sail boat St. Simon with her deck gun 35 miles northwest of Beirut, French Syria-Lebanon at 1335 hours; all aboard survived.
Moscow , Russia : Marshal Andrey Yeryomenko was appointed the commanding officer of the Soviet Southeastern Front, charged with planning the defense of Stalingrad in southern Russia.
Lt. Gen. Andrei Yeremenko, twice wounded in battle, faces a Moscow doctor. Yeremenko struggles to walk on his wounded leg without a stick, and can only move half a dozen steps. The doctor refuses to clear Yeremenko for duty. Yeremenko says, “Tell me, professor, hand on heart, if you were suffering from an illness like mine, in its present stage, could you sit calmly on one side, knowing that hundreds of people were dying from wounds and waiting for your help, yours, Professor, no-one else?”
The doctor clears Yeremenko for duty. Near midnight, Yeremenko gets a phone call from Stalin himself. Stalin has a new and important job for Yeremenko. His hour has come.
Kalach , Don River , Russia : German 4th Panzer Army attacked Kotelnikovo located 100 miles southwest of Stalingrad, surprising Soviet defenders. Meanwhile Soviet resistance convinced General Paulus that German Sixth Army was not strong enough to cross the Don by itself, so he waited for Fourth Panzer Army to fight its way north.
With Paulus’s Sixth Army locked in the battles of the Don bend, its force plainly insufficient to flatten Soviet resistance, the Soviet command nevertheless learned to ts consternation of the development of a major new threat from the south-west, where Hitler had swung Fourth Panzer Army away from the drive into the Caucasus, ordering this formation to strike from its bridgeheads on the Don at Tsymlanskaya to drive north-east along the Tikhoretsk-Stalingrad railway line and into the Soviet flank behind Kalach.
On 1st August, Fourth Panzer Army crashed into Kolomiits’s flimsy Soviet 51st Army and pushed it aside in a drive for Kotelnikovo. Gordov, although given control of 51st Army, had to do some speedy regrouping: in Soviet 62nd Army, Kolpakchi was relieved of his command and replaced by Lopatin who had practically lost an army during the earlier retreats to the Don, while at 64th Army Shumilov, who had begun the war with his corps in Lithuania took over full command as Chuikov established and controlled a southerly ‘operational group’, an improvised force which finally backed on the river Aksai, there to bar the way against Fourth Panzer. Gordov had now to face a double threat, from the north-west (Kalach-Stalingrad) and the south-west (from the Aksai to Stalingrad), his whole front running for some 400 miles, a fact which gave rise for concern in Moscow where Stalin and the GKO sat considering the problems of the Stalingrad Front, and in particular how to counter the peril from the south.
Caucasian Front , Russia : German 1st Panzer Army captured Salsk, Russia. The Germans cut the railway line linking Stalingrad to Krasnodar at Salsk.
Rzhev-Vyazma Front , Russia : Marshall Georgy Zhukov launched a feint attack at Yukhnov, Russia, drawing German attention away from Rzhev where the main attack by Soviet 20th, 29th, 30th, and 31st Armies would soon commence.
London , UK : Winston Churchill prepares to fly to Cairo to check on the Egyptian front, and thence Moscow to personally explain Operation Torch to Josef Stalin. Churchill writes the King, “The materials for a joyous meeting are meager indeed. Still I may perhaps make the situation less edged.”
General Alan Brooke , Imperial Chief of Staff , left London to Gibraltar and then Malta to visit the island fortress in Mediterranean then to Cairo , Egypt.
The same day, Col. John Bevan is appointed head of the “London Controlling Section,” whose job is to deceive the Germans about Allied intentions. They put three deceptions into action, Operation Solo (a fake invasion of Norway), Operation Overthrow (a fake invasion of the Pas de Calais) and Operation Kennecott, a false invasion of Greece. The Germans, who get their intelligence straight from the Allied “Double Cross” system, are suitably fooled.
Bevan also set up two deception schemes, whereby the two commanders of Operation Torch, General Eisenhower and Admiral Cunningham, on their arrival in Gibraltar to take charge of the final planning, were thought respectively to have been ‘recalled to Washington’ and ‘posted to the Far East’ via his Double Cross agents planting false information to Germans.
UK : The British Army Air Corps and Glider Pilot Regiment were established
USA : The United States Navy Bureau of Ordnance admitted problems with torpedoes, but only that they were running 10 feet to deep, refusing to address the detonator failure issue.
Kokoda Track , South West Pacific : There was a pause in the Japanese advance. Remaining companies of the Australian 39th Militia Battalion arrived overland and Major Allan Cameron, Brigade Major of the 30th Brigade was appointed to assume command of the force.
Guadalcanal , Solomon Islands , SW Pacific : Guadalcanal scout and government clerk Daniel Pule provides Martin Clemens with a detailed report with a map of Lunga plain showing tents, workshops, bomb sheds, and a wireless station. Trenches and dugouts are marked in red pencil. Clemens radios this to Townsville, Australia. Townsville immediately asks for the exact location of the radio station. Clemens provides it.
Pacific Ocean : American submarine USS Narwhal torpedoed and sank Japanese freighter Meiwa Maru and tanker Koan Maru in the Tsugaru Strait between Hokkaido Prefecture and Aomori Prefecture, Japan.
2 August 1942
Atlantic Ocean : German submarine U-510 misidentified Uruguay cargo ship Maldonado, torpedoed and sank her 250 miles southeast of Bermuda at 0545 hours; all 49 board survived but the captain would be taken prisoner. At 0927 hours, U-254 torpedoed and sank British cargo ship Flora II 145 miles southeast of Reykjavik, Iceland; all 30 aboard survived.
At 1818 hours, U-160 torpedoed and sank British cargo ship Treminnard 200 miles east of Trinidad; all 39 aboard survived but the captain would be taken prisoner.
Scotland , UK : Operation Pedestal started. At precisely 2000 hours on Sunday evening, August 2, the fourteen merchantmen quietly slipped out of the Clyde, closely escorted by the destroyers HMS Amazon and HMS Zetland. They formed a column led by the 7,500-ton freighter Deucalion, spread out over fifty-two minutes to the 7,800-ton freighter Almeria Lykes, the only other all-American ship besides the Santa Elisa. The British manned tanker Ohio is in middle. The escort was simply astonishing. There were two huge Royal Navy battleships, HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson, three aircraft carriers, HMS Eagle, HMS Indomitable and HMS Victorious, seven cruisers and twenty-four destroyers, together with some smaller corvettes. Yet another carrier, HMS Furious, with her own escort of eight destroyers, soon joined them. This would be Do Or Die Attempt of Royal Navy to break throıugh blockade of Malta.
They passed through the North Channel and steamed north of Ireland, out into the open sea. The masters all carried thick manila envelopes with detailed instructions, marked “Not To Be Opened Until 0800/10th August,” which was when the convoy was scheduled to enter the Mediterranean to meet its fate.
Gibraltar : As the Operation Pedestal convoy steamed away from the Clyde at dusk on August 2, Winston Churchill took off from a Gibraltar airfield in the “Commando,” a converted B-24 Liberator bomber with a couple of mattresses thrown into the back on shelves where the bomb racks had once been. He had spent the day in Gibraltar after leaving from London the previous midnight and flying all night, sitting for the first couple of hours in the copilot’s seat as the plane flew low over the south of England, with its young American pilot hoping that word had reached the antiaircraft guns not to shoot them down.
Now they were headed off over enemy territory in Africa toward Cairo, with Churchill again riding shotgun, his oxygen mask modified so a cigar could fit between the nosepiece and chin rest. “He looked exactly as though he was in a Christmas party disguise,” said the officer in charge of oxygen.
Malta : General Brooke , Chief of Imperial General Staff , had left England one day earlier, so he could stop in Malta and visit Governor Gort. His B-24 Liberator took a more dangerous route over the Mediterranean, risking the nearly full moon, and landed before dawn between the bomb craters on Hal Far airfield.
After his brief vist , General Alan Brooke was concerned about Lord Gort , the Governor of Malta , who insisted on living on reduced food rations, “in spite of the fact that he was doing twice as much physical and mental work as any other member of the garrison. Owing to the shortage of petrol he was using a bicycle in that sweltering heat, and frequently had to carry his bicycle over demolished houses.”
“The conditions prevailing in Malta at that time were distinctly depressing, to put it mildly,” said General Brooke. “Shortage of rations, shortage of petrol, a hungry population that rubbed their tummies looking at Gort as he went by, destruction and ruin of docks, loss of convoys just as they approached the island, and the continual possibility of an attack…without much hope of help or reinforcements.”
With the beginning of August, the sirocco arrived, blowing the heat and sand of the North African desert over the sea and adding to the discomfort of the Island. Kesselring had promised to pound Malta into dust, and he had been true to his word although Axis air raids reduced to minimum at the end of July due to heavy German aircraft losses anmd transfer of Luftdlootte II squadrons to Eastern Front. Dust was everywhere in Malta : on all the houses, in the streets, covering the piles of rubble, swirling about the air whenever there was the slightest breeze; it made food and drink taste gritty, caused eye infections, clogged the back of one’s throat, caused blisters on one’s feet. The pilots were covered in the stuff every time a plane took off. Raoul Daddo-Langlois described watching a section of four take to the air. ‘Then they were all away, roaring across the parched field until they were lost to sight in a dense cloud of dust which got into one’s hair and eyes and from which there was no escape, except to get off the Island.’
Much of the Island lay in ruins, a constant reminder of how Malta had suffered. And the population was now even hungrier. The bread ration had been cut again, and at the beginning of July pasteurized milk was restricted to hospitals and children between the ages of two and nine. Farmers had been ordered to hand over all their crops to the Government, a necessary move but one that caused deep suspicion. Supplies of potatoes were also now exceedingly short. As Lord Gort pointed out in a letter to the Prime Minister, ‘Nations at War have managed to ration either bread or potatoes, but not both. It does not matter whether the calorific or vitamin content of a diet is sufficient scientifically to maintain health if the psychological side of the diet is wrong. To be told you will not starve, but to be conscious at the same time that your stomach is an aching void, is apt to leave the average person discontented.’ Gort understood this only too well: as Governor, he’d decided he needed to set an example and so was living off the same rations as everyone else. For the most part, he also refused to travel by car, instead riding a bicycle and even carrying it over the piles of rubble.
The destruction is inconceivable and reminds one of Ypres, Arras, Lens at their worst during [the] last war,’ Alan Brookr noted in his diary. Brooke spoke at length with Gort, Vice-Admiral Leatham and Keith Park. The Target Date for surrender had now been put back to the end of September thanks to the June convoy and the Magic Carpet services. But for Gort, managing the Island’s meagre stocks was a never-ending and thankless juggling act. Because it was now high summer the lack of kerosene was less of a problem than it would be once winter arrived, when a whole host of further difficulties would arise. With this in mind, he was eager to keep reserves of potatoes for use as seed rather than for eating. But there was a limit to how much could be home-grown, and attempts at using human faeces to fertilize the soil had backfired badly, causing an outbreak of typhoid that killed 99 people.
Mediterranean Sea : RAF Wellington bombers and B-26 bombers from Desert Air Force hit and sank German fast minesweepers R-9 and R-11 off Bardia , Libya.
El Alamein , Egypt : The commander of 13 Corps, Lieutenant General William Strafer Gott, also produced an Appreciation on August 1. Drafted by Gott’s two talented principal staff officers, Brigadier “Bobby” Erskine and Major Freddy de Butts, Gott’s Appreciation predicted the likely shape of Rommel’s next offensive and how it could be countered. The Alam el Halfa Ridge was the key:
"ALAM EL HALFA and GEBEL BEIN GABIR point like fingers to SW and provide all the observation and the good going to the coast road. These features and particularly ALAM EL HALFA are vital for any advance down the Coast to Alexandria-they are also vital to us for holding our present positions. "
Gott’s Appreciation predicted that Rommel would attempt to capture the Alam el Halfa Ridge before cutting the coast road and driving for Alexandria. Gott, who knew the terrain better than any other serving British officer, was certain that this would be Rommel’s only viable course of action:
"There are many possible variations in the details of such a plan but it is the only one which he could carry out with his present shortage of infantry if he is making ALEXANDRIA his objective. "
2 August 1942
Barr has called Gott’s Appreciation “a vital document” that “predicted almost exactly” the scale, scope, and objective of Rommel’s next attack in late August 1942. Barr concluded that “Gott and his staff, rather than Dorman-Smith or Auchinleck-or any other British commander-should be given the full credit for this.”
Gott’s Appreciation accurately predicted Rommel’s next attack and how best to counter it. All three, and another Appreciation prepared by Auchinleck on August 2, provided a solid foundation for Eighth Army’s future success. Despite what Montgomery would write about developing a “master plan” for the next two battles of El Alamein, these “actually originated with Auchinleck and his corps commanders.” Some of Auchinleck’s senior staff officers deserve a share of the credit too.
To counter Rommel’s next attack, Eighth Army altered its positions in the southern sector. In the north, the positions remained unchanged, with the 9th Australian Division holding the coastal section including the El Alamein railway station and the newly won sector of Tel el Eisa. To their south, the 1st South African Division occupied the El Alamein Box, while the 5th Indian Division held Ruweisat Ridge. These three infantry divisions made up 30 Corps under the command of Lieutenant General W.H. Ramsden. To the south of Ruweisat Ridge, the 2nd New Zealand Division began the construction of the New Zealand Box. The western edge of this box covered the five miles from Ruweisat to the Alam Nayil feature and it constituted the southern end of the Alamein position.24 To the south of the New Zealand Box, the armored cars and mobile gun-columns of the 7th Armoured Division patrolled the broken desert as far as the impassable Qattara Depression. The New Zealanders and 7th Armoured formed 13 Corps under Lieutenant General Gott. Close behind the center of the line, where it could assist either corps, was the bulk of the British armored formations. These were being reorganized by Auchinleck and classified according to the types of tank available. The 22nd Armoured Brigade, with all of the Grant and some Crusader tanks, was the “heavy” formation. The Valentine tanks were placed in 23 Armoured Brigade, while 4 Light Armoured Brigade was equipped with all the Stuart (Honey) tanks and the leftover Crusaders. Eighth Army Iawaited massive reinforcement of the men and materiel in transit to Suez. Some 300 Sherman tanks were on their way, but would not arrive before the end of August. (actually their engines and assembly with chassis and bodies would extend availibility of M4 Shermans till mid September since all these components were incoming in different ships)
Strafer concluded that Rommel would almost certainly:
“attack with Alam el Halfa as his first objective, going round anywhere south of Alam Nyal Ridge [also spelt Alam Nayil, about 4 miles south of Alam el Halfa] and thrusting straight for Alexandria. A raid down the Barrel track towards the delta might be combined with this. This is much the most likely course and the most difficult to meet.”
He also concluded that any attack north of Alam Nyal in the gap between it and Alam El Halfa was unlikely as the enemy would have to cope with British minefields and well-prepared positions. The ground was broken and that would add to the difficulty but he mused that ‘there are many possible variations in the details of such a plan, but it is the only one that he could carry out with his present shortage of infantry if he is making Alexandria his objective.’
Some details of Brigadier Dorman-Smith’s appreciation and defensive schemes were downright faulty. Especially thinning of defences in southern lank of Alamein line where 13th Corps was supposed to stage a moden mobile(!) defence (Dorman-Smith was still alien to the state or culture of the army he was serving)
General Inglis commander of 2nd New Zealand Infantry Division did not like the details:
“The plan for occupation of ALAM HALFA posn, . . . as now prepared, provides for two Bde boxes out of mutual supporting distance. I want to occupy it as a Div posn with bulk of arty centrally situated and able to cover whole Western and Southern fronts. Corps Comd requests outline plan accordingly.” Gott took account of these reservations and, after he and Inglis had scouted the positions on 2 August, the western end of the defences on Alam el Halfa ridge were redug and the minefields relaid. Gott spent 31 July - 3 August going round the New Zealand Division sector , ‘inspecting 25 posns in detail, and forward OPs in 21 Bn area’. Nothing was left to chance. Meanwhile, Inglis met with the newly promoted Brigadier G. P. B. ‘Pip’ Roberts, commander of 22nd Armoured Brigade, who was tasked with supporting the New Zealand Division in the event of a German attack. There was time for British armour and the infantry they were to support to discuss and plan coming operations in detail.
Moscow , Russia : After spending most of the day studying maps of Stalingrad and the surrounding area, Andrey Yeryomenko had a second conference with Stalin. Yeryomenko protested that two Russian fronts in the same area meant that trying to co-ordinate Stalingrad’s defence with another commander would be “utterly confusing, if not tragically impossible,” and asked to command the Stalingrad Front in the north rather than the Southeastern Front. Stalin firmly said that everything would be left as it was already outlined.
Black Sea : Italian torpedo boats and German He 111 torpedo bombers attacked Soviet light cruiser Molotov off Feodossiya, Ukraine, scoring one torpedo hit, killing 18, and put the ship out of commission until 31 Jul 1943.
Kalach , Don River , Russia : German 4th Panzer Army captured Kotelnikovo, Russia.
General von Richthofen commander of Luftflotte IV , on the basis of the air reconnaissance reports, noted in his diary on 2 August: ‘The Russians are throwing forces from all directions towards Stalingrad.’
Warshaw , Poland : Further deportations of Jewish community from Warshaw ghetto to Teblinka Extermination camp initiated by SS.
Papua New Guinea : Five B-17 bombers attacked Japanese shipping near Buna, Australian Papua; 9 Zero fighters of the Tainan Air Group intercepted the attackers, forcing the bombers to release their bombs before reaching their targets; one bomber was lost on this mission.
Indian Ocean : Free Dutch Navy submarine O 23 attacked a Japanese convoy in the Indian Ocean 55 miles west of Penang, British Malaya at 0842 hours, torpedoed and fatally damaging Japanese Army transport ship Zenyo Maru (27 were killed) which sank later and sinking freighter Ohio Maru.
3 August 1942
Atlantic Ocean : German submarine U-552 detected Allied convoy ON-115 330 miles east of St. John’s, Newfoundland, and submarines U-71, U-217, U-597, U-553, and U-704 moved in to attack in coordination; ships of the convoy became disarrayed as the convoy attempted to change course to evade the attack.
The previous aggressive maneuvering by the Canadian escorts (that sunk U-588 last week) burned fuel oil at a great rate. Therefore the destroyers HMCS Saguenay and HMCS Skeena were compelled to leave the convoy and go directly to St. John’s, Newfoundland for refueling. To make matters worse, the corvette HMCS Wetaskiwin separated from the convoy, became lost in the fog, and also went directly to St. John’s. These departures temporarily reduced the escort to merely three corvettes, but two other destroyers, the British HMS Witch and the Canadian four-stack HMCS Hamilton, and another corvette, HMCS Agassiz, put out from Newfoundland to reinforce the group. Although convoy Outbound North 115 was sailing into the protective fog of the Newfoundland Bank and ever closer to radar-equipped land-based ASW aircraft, Dönitz directed the eight remaining boats of group Wolf to reinforce the six of group Pirat and attack as they completed refueling. The first of the Wolf boats to find the convoy was Erich Topp in U-552. He gave the alarm and shadowed, bringing up boats of both groups.
In the confused, fogbound attacks which ensued on the night of August 2-3, , German submarine U-552 torpedoed and sank British cargo ship Lochkatrine (9 were killed, 81 survived) and damaged British tanker G. S. Walden (1 was killed) at 0305 hours; at 0401 hours, U-553 torpedoed and damaged Belgian cargo ship Belgian Soldier.
Further out in the North Atlantic, German submarine U-605 torpedoed and sank British trawler HMS Bombay 190 miles southeast of Reykjavik, Iceland at 1654 hours, killing all 13 aboard.
Royal Navy submarine HMS Saracen sank German submarine U-335 300 kilometers northwest of Bergen, Norway at 2130 hours (43 were killed, 1 survived and captured by HMS Saracen)
On August 1, British Admiralty informed the new Royal Navy submarine HMS Saracen, which was in workup north of the Shetlands, to be on the lookout for two German submarines that might pass through her area during the next two days. Admiralty probably got that intelligence from signals intercept since they could still read German naal Enigma code in bits and partially especially German dockyard Werft code and three rotor Enigma machine output German Navy had in Norway.
HMS Saracen, commanded by Lt. Michael G. R. Lumby, went on full alert.
Late in the afternoon of August 3, while running submerged, the periscope watch of HMS Saracen picked up Germnan submarine U-335 at 3,000 yards. Three minutes later, Lumby commenced firing all six bow tubes at seven-second intervals. One or more torpedoes hit German submarine and U-335 blew sky-high. Upon surfacing to collect debris for proof of a kill, Lumby found one German body and two survivors. When he attempted to fish them out, one refused to be rescued and deliberately drowned himself, Lumby reported. The other, Rudolf Jahnke, a signalman who was thrown from U-335’s bridge when the torpedo struck, willingly came on board. HMS Saracen reloaded her tubes and remained on alert, hoping to find and kill the other Grman submarine , but she had no further luck.
English Channel : German fast torpedoboat HS-1 Holstein was sunk in the English Channel off the coast of Brittany , France by [Royal Navy MGB (motor gun boats)
Cairo , Egypt : Churchill and General Alan Brooke Imperial Chief of Staff arrived in Cairo on 3 August.
General Alan Brooke arrived in Cairo before the Prime Minister and took the chance to interview Lieutenant General Corbett, Auchinleck’s Chief of General Staff (CGS). Brooke was highly unimpressed and recorded in his diary:
“One interview with him was enough to size him up. He was a very, very small man. Unfit for his job of CGS and totally unsuited for command of the Eighth Army, an appointment that The Auk had suggested. Consequently, Corbett’s selection reflected very unfavourably on The Auk’s ability to select men and confirmed my fears in that respect.” Brooke decided to sack Corbett (who was indeed a very inefficient Chief of Staff for Commander in Chief Middle East) on the spot.
Before leaving London , Alan Brooke had already heard previously relieved General Ritchie and General Norrie’s accounts of recent events. Now he talked to General Messervy previous commander of 7th British Armored Division , 13th Corps commander General Gott and others. He heard a lot about Auchinleck’s poor judgement of character and particularly about the arrogant and meddling Chink Dorman-Smith, who, he was told, shared Auchinleck’s tent and was responsible for a good deal of trouble and bad feeling. Alan Brooke is becoming more and more convinced that half of Eighth Army problems were due to bad leadership choices and decisions of Auchinleck and his close circxle of commanders and staff.
Described as hardworking, perceptive, strong, “utterly professional” and ruthless, Brooke knew that Eighth Army had serious problems and that these began the top. Auchinleck and other senior officers were anxious about the visit as indeed they should have been. After a year in command under Auchinleck, Eighth Army “had suffered over 100,000, mostly Commonwealth casualties-100 per cent of its original strength.” There was little to show for these heavy casualties: a string of defeats, two sacked army commanders, and an army that had lost its confidence after finally halting Rommel on the Alamein position.
Mediterranean Sea : Royal Navy submarine HMS Thorn torpedoed and sank Italian cargo ship Moroviso (which had been hit and badly damaged by RAF Beaufort torpedo bombers from Malta) off Tobruk , Libya
Kalach , Don River , Russia : Fourth Panzer Army crossed Don river at Tsimlyansky , German vanguard began attacking Kletskaya , slowly cutting rear of Soviet 62nd Army rear at Kalach bridgehead
Caucasian Front , Russia : German First Panzer Army captured Stavropol in southern Russia. The advance guıard of First Panzer Army began invading Kuban plains and overrun Voroshilovsk which fell on 5th August. The 23rd Panzer Division punched out the Caucasian Cavalry Corps, destroying 68 tanks in one hour, and capturing the corps’ chief of staff. Meanwhile other German troops reached Stavropol in the Caucasus.
Soviet ‘Don’ and ‘Coastal’ groups were pulled back to the river Kuban, while frenzied work went on both to evacuate food stocks and equipment from the Kuban and to mobilize the Trans-Caucasian Front, which had become fully operational. Under the direction of the GKO, the industrial equipment in Armavira, Krasnodar and Maikop was loaded on to trucks, on to which however refugees also scrambled, fleeing as best they might to the Caspian.
Although German Army Group A made a quick advance, by 3 August the vanguard comprised only light mobile forces and most of the tanks lagged behind, due to lack of fuel and supply breakdowns, despite the efforts of 4th Luftwaffe Air Corps, which flew in supplies around the clock.
“The heat of the Kuban steppe was stifling,” writes Gen. Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, a panzer corps commander. “We were glad to approach the Caucasus Mountains and breathe cooler air. By this time my corps had spent over a month behind the Soviet lines. Rumors of disagreements at Supreme Headquarters on account of the eccentricity of the maneuvers - southward toward the Caucasus and northeastward against Stalingrad - did not worry us at this time, but difficulties with fuel supply were already being felt.”
3 August 1942
Moscow , Russia : Early in August Colonel-General Yeremenko, recovering from leg wounds received in the spring, was summoned to a session of the GKO, to one of those night-time conferences in the large, oblong-shaped room with its subdued lighting; Stalin told Yeremenko that the GKO had decided to split the Stalingrad Front into two, and that he was a candidate for one Front command. Both Yeremenko and Vasilevskii were to report back after studying the information available at the General Staff. Here Yeremenko spent the whole of 2 August. That evening, together with Vasilevski, Major-General V.D. Ivanov of the General Staff and Lieutenant-General Golikov (nominated as 1st Guards Army commander, a force assembled from Moscow district paratroops) Yeremenko attended Stalin’s nightly conference. Colonel-General Vasilevskii presented a brief report on what was involved in terms of forces in splitting the Front, while Ivanov outlined the provisional decision on the map. With the draft directive on the table in front of the officers, Yeremenko asked Stalin for permission to make some points, since the final decision had not been taken. To this Stalin agreed, and Yeremenko pointed out the need to adjust the Front boundary lines, so that Stalingrad itself lay within one Front area. This provoked an irritable outburst from Stalin who swung on Vasilevskii and ordered him to finalize the directive: ‘Everything stays as we proposed. Stalingrad Front is split into two fronts: the boundary line between the fronts is to run along the line of the river Tsarits and then on to Kalach.’ In between pacing the room, Stalin asked for the name for the new front, whereupon one voice suggested that the front to the north should retain the old name, Stalingrad, the one to the south should be called South-Eastern. Stalin agreed and the directive was signed on the spot; on candidates for Front commands, two names came up - Gordov and Yeremenko, the latter to take the South-Eastern Front. At 03.00 hours the session was finished, the directive signed and the instruction that the staffs of both Fronts would be located in Stalingrad itself incorporated: two commands, two Fronts, two staffs, two sets of forces to defend the same objective.
Black Sea : Italian torpedo boats raided Novorissisk , Russia, torpedoed and damaging Soviet destroyer Kharkov.
UK : A German Do 217 medium bomber attacked Middlesbrough, England, United Kingdom at 1308 hours, damaging the railway station, killing 8 civilians, and wounding 56.
Milne Bay , Papua New Guinea : The Japanese discovered that a new US airfield was being built on the coast of Milne Bay in Australian Papua.
Espiritu Santo , South West Pacific : US Navy destroyer USS Tucker struck a friendly mine and sank near Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides at 2145 hours; 6 were killed, 152 survived.
Pacific Ocean : American submarine USS Gudgeon torpedoed and sank Japanese passenger/cargo ship Naniwa Maru 80 miles west of Truk, Caroline Islands at 0400 hours; 31 were killed.
Japanese submarine I-175 damaged Australian trawler Dureenbee with her deck gun and machine gun 20 miles off Moruya, Australia; 3 were killed and 9 survivors abandoned the burning wreck.
4 August 1942
Caribbean Sea : German submarine U-160 torpedoed and sank Norwegian tanker Havsten 200 miles east of Trinidad at 0159 hours; 2 were killed, 31 survived but 2 were captured by U-160. At 1615 hours, U-155 torpedoed and sank British cargo ship Empire Arnold 600 miles east of Trinidad; 9 were killed, 48 survived but the captain was captured by U-155.
Atlantic Ocean : At 0229 hours, German submarine U-607 torpedoed and sank already-damaged Belgian cargo ship Belgian Soldier straggling rear of Allied convoy ON-115 330 miles east of St. John’s, Newfoundland; 21 were killed, 39 survived.
At 1558 hours, U-176 torpedoed and sank British cargo ship Richmond Castle 1,100 miles southeast of Newfoundland; 14 were killed, 50 survived.
Cairo , Egypt : During his visit to Cairo, Winston Churchill is told by General Alan Brooke , Imperial Chief of Staff that if the Germans take the Caucasus, they will threaten the Persian Gulf. Alan Brooke tells the Prime Minister that if Russians could not hold Caucaus , then Egypt and North Africa would have to be abandoned, to protect the Persian Gulf and Britain’s oil supplies.
Brooke recommends to Churchill that Gen. Sir Claude Auchinleck’s place should be that of Commander-in-Chief, not head of Eighth Army as well, and that Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery (General Alan Brooke’sa own protegee) , the planned commander of the British First Army in Operation Torch, be given the Eighth Army instead. Churchill initialy proposes command of Eighth Armny to Alan Brooke which he politely turns down. Then Churchill prefers Gen. Strafer Gott to command Eighth Army , whom Churchill likes for his fighting record , frontline action and besides according to Churchill , Gott is on the spot and could work out immediate plans for an offensive. Auchinleck’s future would be determined in a conferance at Eighth Army field. HQ next day
Mediterranean Sea : German submarine U-372 was detected on surface by a radar equipped RAF Wellington bomber 50 miles southwest of Haifa, Palestine and alerted Royal Navy ships close by. While Royal Navy destroyers HMS Sikh, HMS Zulu, HMS Croome, and HMS Tetcott closed in on the location, Wellington bomber marked the location of diving U-372 with flares.
Two big destroyers, HMS Sikh and HMS Zulu, peeled out. HMS Sikh promptly got a good sonar contact and carried out six dogged depth-charge attacks while HMS Zulu carried out one. U-372 got away but when she later surfaced, a lookout in HMS Sikh’s crow’s nest saw the damaged German submarine, and the two Royal Navy destroyers opened fire with their 4.7” main batteries, forcing U-372 under again. Assisted by aircraft, Royal Navy destroyers each carried out three more depth-charge attacks. Two other destroyers, HMS Croome and HMS Tetcott, arrived about noon with full loads of depth charges and each carried out three attacks. Finally, at 1:30 P.M., the battered and wrecked U-372 rose to the surface and was scuttled by her crew. The destroyers captured Captain Neumann and forty-five other Germans.
Kalach , Don River , Ruıssia : Elements of German Fourth Panzer Army crossed the Aksay River en route to Stalingrad, Russia.
While waiting for its motor fuel and ammunition stocks to be replenished, German Sixth Army was getting Headquarters, 11th German Corps, which had been held at Kamensk-Shakhtinsky with two infantry divisions as the OKH reserve. On 4 August, when his mobile units had enough fuel to go about thirty miles, General Paulus , commander of Sixth German Army ordered the attack on the Kalach bridgehead to start on the 8th. However, the next day the OKH asked to have the attack start at least a day earlier because Hitler was worried that the Soviet troops would escape across the Don if Paulus waited longer. Hitler also ordered Richthofen to support Sixth Army’s new attack at Kalach west of the Don River on 7 August. Richthofen flew first to Paulus’s command post and then to Army Group B’s headquarters, where the supreme commander of Army Group B , General Maximilian von Weichs was furious at the listlessness of the Italian and Hungarian units under his command authority. Both Paulus and Weichs were highly optimistic about the success of the offensive. Weichs and Richthofen carefully coordinated an all-out land-air Schwerpunkt on Kalach, which Richthofen planned to hit with everything he had.
As Stalin formed his new Front, the situation in the Don bend deteriorated drastically: breaking through 62nd Army’s right wing, German units reached the Don on a front of some nine miles in the Malogolubaya area, splitting the Soviet forces in two. Gordov now proposed to use 21st Army with 1st and 4th Tank Armies again in an attempt to nip off this German penetration. Lopatin had already tried to get Gordov to examine the danger to the flanks of 62nd Army, and asked for permission to pull back to the Don. Gordov refused to listen and pressed on with his counter-attack plans involving tank corps with only fifteen tanks apiece. To the south-east, Fourth Panzer had reached Abganerovo on 5th August.
On 4 August, the Germans were still 97 km (60 mi) from Stalingrad
Stalingrad , Russia : General Yeremenko flew down to Stalingrad in a Douglas transport aircraft. Commissar Nikita Khrushchev met him at the airport with a car and they drove to the city’s headquarters. Yeremenko is give four days to set up his defenses. He puts his headquarters in the new Tsaritsyn Bunker. The dividing line between his front and Gordov’s runs right through the center of the city.
Rzhev-Vyazma Front , Russia : Soviet 20th Army and 31st Army attacked Rzhev, Russia from the south while 29th Army and 30th Army attacked from the north.
Auschwitz , Poland : Deportation of Belgian Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp began.
Man, it sure has been rough being a soldier in the 6th army as of the past few months. Hopefully nothing disastrously bad happenms to us in the coming year.
wait for the Stalingrad party
with
"looking at empty food cans"
as the main course of the menue
Eh, they’ll be okay. They’ll get into the city then just hang out for a while and chill.
Nah, they'll be fine. In a couple of months they'll be lying on the beach in Astrakhan and forgetting all about this unpleasant mess.
I would love an hour long special on Guadalcanal. Fascinating.
On August 1942. The North Australian Meat Company announces starting of production of new Waqyu based Salami called Guadalsalami. supplies estimated to last around 6 months.
I'm so hyped for the dieppe raid!
Here comes Monty!
Finally up to date on these, only discovered them recently
I'll be very interested in how the upcoming naval battles will be covered in this series. The Guadalcanal campaign was perhaps the only allied campaign in WW2 where the number of sailors killed outnumbered soldiers. The naval battles of the Solomon's Campaign were brutal affairs where the allies frequently performed poorly due to factors including failures of command/leadership, failures of tactics (including failure to understand what the Japanese did well), and failures to take advantage of radar technology due to lack of understanding and training. In spite of all the mistakes, the allies won the campaign but that victory came at a serious cost. It was, on a number of occasions, a near run thing.