The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945

by The New York Times

  A high-ranking naval spokesman who was present when the communiqué was handed to newspaper reporters said that this information “is absolutely up to date.”

  The communiqué pointed out that during the night of Saturday–Sunday (Solomons date) some naval forces engaged Japanese surface units “in the Guadalcanal area,” and details of this engagement have not been received. It was stated officially, however, that this action represented “sniping around by light stuff,” and that any reports of that engagement yet to be received should not appreciably change the results as reported.

  A “necessarily incomplete resume” of the battle was issued by the Navy, which traced the action from air reconnaissance reports early in November. These revealed a “heavy concentration” of warships, transports and cargo ships by the Japanese in the vicinity of New Britain, site of the Japanese base at Rabaul and the Northwestern Solomons.

  This force began to move toward Guadalcanal and Tulagi Islands, our important strongholds in the Solomons, on Nov. 10. Some naval forces steamed down from the north, while escorted transports moved southeastward from Rabaul and Buin, the advance Japanese base on the island of Bougainville.

  General MacArthur’s bombers, which had made almost daily attacks on the concentrations at Rabaul and Buin, attacked the moving columns of transports with considerable success, as was reported from Australian headquarters last week. Our own naval forces, generally described in informed quarters as being inferior in size to the Japanese, apparently lay in wait for the enemy.

  Two Japanese battleships of the Kongo class, accompanied a force of vessels believed to include two heavy cruisers, four light cruisers and ten destroyers, reached the Guadalcanal area shortly after midnight Friday morning (Solomons date). They intended, the Navy announcement stated, “to bombard our shore positions prior to a large-scale landing from a large group of transports which had been observed in the Buin-Shortland area.”

  This Japanese force was formed in three groups, each in line. Our own ships steamed between these lines at what must have been point-blank range for the heavy guns and opened fire.

  “During this furious night engagement,” the communiqué stated, “the Japanese seemed confused and during the latter part of the battle two of the three Japanese groups were firing at each other. Shortly thereafter the enemy fire ceased and the Japanese withdrew from the battle and retired to the northward.”

  Our aircraft swung into action as soon as light permitted Friday morning and found twelve transports, “under heavy naval escort,” running from the Bougainville area toward Guadalcanal, where the planned bombardment should have prepared the way for their landing. Other aircraft were bombing the Japanese vessels still in the Guadalcanal area.

  Shortly after midnight Friday a Japanese surface force bombarded Guadalcanal, but when the Japanese transports arrived near our beaches later in the morning they were met by American bombers that sank “at least eight of the transports.” The four others continued toward Guadalcanal.

  By Sunday morning American patrol aircraft reported that the Japanese forces were withdrawing northward, “and no reports of any further action have been received.”

  Other scouts discovered four Japanese cargo transports beached at Tassafaronga, about seven and one-half miles from our Guadalcanal positions. They were destroyed by combined air, artillery and naval gunfire.

  Estimates here of the Japanese loss of life in the battle are based on the known number of men carried in various enemy ships and the fact that night actions make rescue difficult. The sunken transports carried an estimated 25,000 men. The battleship sunk would have had a crew of about 1,600 men. Aboard the three heavy cruisers sunk were probably 2,100 to 2,400 men, while the two light cruisers were manned by about 1,000 or 1,200 men. The five destroyers were manned by crews totaling about 1,000.

  Wounded American soldiers on the overcrowded hospital ship USS Solace during the Solomon Island campaign, 1942.

  NOVEMBER 22, 1942

  CEMETERY STEEL DIGS GRAVE FOR THE AXIS

  Thousand Tons of Enclosures And Urns Salvaged for Scrap

  A thousand tons of iron and steel urns, plot enclosures and other graveyard accessories have been salvaged by seventy cemeteries in the metropolitan area for conversion into implements to deal death among the Axis, the regional office of the War Production Board’s general salvage section disclosed yesterday.

  The WPB made public a report from Harry C. Vail, salvage chairman of the Association of Cemetery Officials of the Metropolitan District, which said that all religious faiths were cooperating in the cemetery scrap project.

  Mr. Vail said the project was slow in getting started because of the necessity of obtaining written permission from the plot owners, many of whom were hard to locate. Authorizations were coming in faster now that the preliminary work has been done, he said. One plot owner, located in Mexico, wrote back, authorizing removal of iron gateposts, markers and “anything to beat the Axis.”

  The 1,000 tons of metal already started toward the steel mills will furnish enough scrap for 200 3-inch anti-aircraft guns or 40,000 machine guns of .50 caliber, according to the WPB.

  Mr. Vail said the cemetery officials’ salvage committee had outlined its program to all cemeteries in the State and hoped to extend the salvage campaign beyond the metropolitan district. He suggested that plot owners who wished to contribute the metal on their plots inform their cemetery managers of their wishes.

  NOVEMBER 19, 1942

  NAZI ARMY IN PERIL

  Two Russian Forces Are Advancing North and South to Trap Foe

  MUCH BOOTY IS CAPTURED

  Soviet Also Reports Victories over Germans in 2 Regions of the Caucasus

  By The United Press.

  MOSCOW, Nov. 23—Germany’s Stalingrad salient is in grave peril under a pulverizing Russian onslaught that has killed more than 15,000 Nazi troops, recaptured the Don River stronghold of Kalach and rolled up Soviet advances of forty to fifty miles, the Red Army reported today.

  Shortly after the announcement of a tremendous offensive against both flanks of the German salient tipped by Stalingrad, the midnight communiqué said the Russians were forging rapidly ahead south and northwest of the city.

  A special communiqué last night said the Red Army, smashing through the German lines, had slain 14,000 enemy troops and captured 13,000 prisoners in the opening phase of the greatest offensive it has started since last Winter.

  GERMANS’ RAILWAYS CUT

  The capture of Kalach, on the east bank of the Don forty miles west of Stalingrad, and with it the railroad towns of Krivo Muzginskaya, on the line ten miles southeastward, and Abganerovo, thirty-two miles southwest of Stalingrad on the main Caucasus railway, had cut Nazi rail communications with their forces east of the Don bend.

  The midnight communiqué listing more Russian victories on both German flanks, said another 1,000 Nazis were killed northwest of Stalingrad and 5,000 more captured south of the city.

  The initial impact of the Soviet offensive, a huge nutcracker clamped on the tottering German positions in and behind Stalingrad, blasted a twenty-mile breach in the Nazi lines northwest of the city and a thirteen-mile gap in those on the southern flank, the High Command revealed.

  Six Axis infantry divisions and one tank division were “completely routed,” and heavy losses were inflicted on seven infantry, two tank and two motorized divisions, the first announcement said.

  REDS ATTACK IN STALINGRAD

  In Stalingrad itself the Russians repulsed attacks by German infantry and tanks, killing “several hundred” assault troops. In one sector the Russians swung over to the attack and, after breaking German resistance, occupied a height dominating a broad sweep of the city.

  The successful advance continued northwest of Stalingrad, the midnight communiqué said. In one sector about two regiments of 6,000 German infantry were routed, eighteen tanks destroyed, twelve guns and thirty dugouts wrecked, and large Nazi stores captured.

 
In another sector the Russians dislodged the Germans from a fortified stronghold, killing more than 1,000 enemy troops and destroying twenty-three machine guns, fourteen mortars, two munition dumps and one food base.

  South of Stalingrad, Soviet troops, overcoming resistance, are forging determinedly ahead, the late report said. Several dozen inhabited localities have been captured, it asserted.

  There one Soviet unit routed a full Axis infantry division, taking more than 5,000 prisoners. A whole artillery regiment of the division, together with the commander, surrendered.

  In a single day of fighting south of Stalingrad, the Russians were reported to have captured three German tanks, thirty-six cannon, twenty-two mortars, 100 anti-tank guns, 2,000,000 rifle cartridges and other materiel.

  In the Central Caucasus the Russians disabled two tanks. A factory was occupied in another sector.

  Across the Caucasus in the Tuapse area a German battalion attacked a height and was repulsed with 100 men killed, the high command said.

  The recapture of Kalach was the first big victory in the Red Army’s Winter offensive against the German invaders. After Kalach fell, the Russians pressed ten miles southeastward and seized the railroad town of Krivo Muzginskaya on the line to Stalingrad, indicating that they were driving eastward to attack the Stalingrad siege army from the rear.

  At the same time Red Army forces pushing up from the south took Abganerovo, thirty-two miles southwest of Stalingrad on the main railway running down into the Caucasus. Thus the Germans lost both of their rail connections with the advanced forces at Stalingrad.

  The massive Russian drive was reminiscent of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko’s counter-offensive a year ago which recaptured Rostov, gateway to the Caucasus, and set in motion the Winter campaign of the Red Army. Rostov fell to the Germans a year ago today and exactly a week later Marshal Timoshenko threw them out and began chasing them back along the Sea of Azov coast and into the Ukraine.

  The Russian Armies deployed along the outer approaches to Stalingrad struck with deadly effect several days ago, according to the special communiqué the second in a week revealing a great Soviet success in South Russia. They converged from two directions on both the exposed flanks of the German Army, which had spearheaded across the Don to Stalingrad and besieged the defiant city for nearly three months.

  The initial breakthrough northwest of Stalingrad was in the region of Serafi-movich, on the Don 100 miles above the Volga city.

  MUCH BOOTY IS TAKEN

  The booty in three days of fighting included 360 field guns, great lots of smaller arms and trucks, and mountainous stores of various war supplies, ammunition and fuel, the High Command said. The enemy left on the battlefield more than 14,000 corpses of officers and men, the communiqué said.

  The government newspaper Izvestia said the German command still was moving reserves “into the mouth of the furnace” at Stalingrad, which it described as the crematorium” of the Nazi Army.

  Soviet Offensive Imperils the Germans: Breaking broad gaps in the enemy positions, the Russians captured Kalach and Krivo Muzginskaya (1), west of Stalingrad; and Abganerovo (2), to the south. They thus severed two of the rail lines supplying the Nazi forces assaulting the Volga city. A Red Army offensive was also progressing to the northwest in the neighborhood of Serafimovich (3) on the Don River.

  “There are more German corpses amid the ruins of Stalingrad than there are stones,” Izvestia said.

  It was three months ago, on Aug. 23, that the Germans began the battle for Stalingrad with the first mass air attack on the city. The latest German offensive was begun Nov. 12.

  The German attacks in the northern factory area recently had been limited to platoons supported by individual tanks. The Russians have been slicing off the tips of Nazi salients and wiping out encircled detachments, front reports said.

  After Germany’s disastrous defeat before Orjonokidze, the Central Caucasus, the invasion forces fell back beyond a water barrier and tried to dig in among the hills southeast of Nalchik. Soviet sappers cleared a path through the mine fields and anti-tank obstacles, enabling Red Army infantry to go forward and overwhelm a fortified hill.

  Rains were said to have transformed the roads southeast of Nalchik into bogs in which German transport and armored units wallowed helplessly. The Nazis no longer are using their tanks to spearhead attacks but as roving gun posts supporting their infantry, front reports said.

  NOVEMBER 25, 1942

  HIMMLER PROGRAM KILLS POLISH JEWS

  Slaughter of 250,000 in Plan To Wipe Out Half in Country This Year Is Reported

  REGIME IN LONDON ACTS

  Officials of Poland Publish Data—Dr. Wise Gets Check Here by State Department

  By JAMES MacDONALD

  Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES

  LONDON, Nov. 24—Old persons, children, infants and cripples among the Jewish population of Poland are being shot, killed by various other methods or forced to undergo hardships that inevitably cause death as a means of carrying out an order by Heinrich Himmler, Nazi Gestapo chief, that half the remaining Polish Jews must be exterminated by the end of this year, according to a report issued today by the Polish Government in London.

  The report, some details of which have been printed recently in Palestine newspapers, said the only Jews being spared in Poland were the able-bodied who could provide “slave labor” for the German war effort.

  The Polish authorities gave out statistics showing that up to Oct. 1 about 250,000 Polish Jews had been killed under the Himmler program, put into effect this year.

  As an instance of the rapidity with which the Jewish population had been cut down, either by evacuation to Nazi war factories, deaths from disease or by liquidation, the Polish officials said only 40,000 October ration cards had been printed for the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, where the population last March was 433,000. This had been a reduction from 130,000 ration cards in September for the Warsaw Jews.

  MASS KILLINGS IN FREIGHT CARS

  Declaring that the Nazi program to reduce the number of Jews in Poland by 50 per cent this year was a “first step toward complete liquidation,” the report said:

  “The most ruthless methods are being applied. The victims are either dragged out of their homes or simply seized in the streets.

  “The Germans have mobilized a special battalion under the command of S. S. men and these are characterized by their utter ruthlessness and inhumanity. The victims when caught are driven to a square where old people and cripples are selected, taken to a cemetery and shot there.

  “The remainder are loaded into goods trucks [freight cars] at a rate of 150 to a truck that normally holds forty. The floors of the trucks are covered with a thick layer of lime or chlorine sprinkled with water. The doors are sealed.

  A Nazi roundup of Jews in Warsaw, 1942.

  “Sometimes the train starts immediately on being loaded. Sometimes it remains on a siding for two days or even longer.

  “The people are packed so tightly that those who die of suffocation remain in the crowd side by side with those still living and with those slowly dying from the fumes of the lime and chloride and from lack of air, water and food.

  “Wherever the trains arrive half the people are dead. Those surviving are sent to special camps at Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor [in Southeastern Poland]. Once there the so-called settlers are mass-murdered.

  FEW SURVIVE FOR LABOR BATTALIONS

  “Only the young and relatively strong people are left alive for they provide valuable slave labor for the Germans. However, the percentage of these is extremely small, for out of a total of about 250,000 resettled, only about 4,000 have been sent to do auxiliary work on the battle fronts.

  “Neither children nor babies are spared. Orphans from asylums and day nurseries are evacuated as well. The director of the biggest Jewish orphanage in Warsaw and well-known Polish writer Janusz Korczak, to whom the Germans had given permission to remain in the ghetto, preferred to follow his charges
to death.

  “Thus under the guise of resettlement in the east, the mass murder of the Jewish population is taking place.”

  The report remarked in connection with the data showing the population of the Warsaw ghetto as 433,000 in March that, although there was extremely high mortality there because of bad hygienic conditions, starvation, executions and the like, the number in the ghetto had remained more or less stable because Jews from other parts of Poland and from Germany, Austria and the Netherlands had been taken there.

  DECEMBER 5, 1942

  AXIS FIGHTS HARD TO HOLD VITAL NORTHEAST TUNISIA

  ALLIES LOSE TOWNS

  Nazis Retake Tebourba, Hold Mateur and Part of Djedeida

  DECISIVE PHASE IS NEAR

  Both Sides Recouping Strength—U. S. Troops Drive Foe East from Tebessa

  By JAMES MacDONALD

  Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.

  LONDON, Dec. 4—A fierce tank battle raged today in the vital railroad and highway triangle between Bizerte and Tunis, the immediate objectives of the Allied drive in Tunisia, according to reports reaching London tonight from both Allied and enemy sources. Both sides were said to be using parachute troops on a large scale.

  Apparently the Axis forces have recaptured the town of Tebourba, which is about twenty miles west of Tunis. Also, they again hold the eastern half of Djedeida, twelve miles west of Tunis—Djedeida having changed hands several times.

  Meanwhile Mateur, twenty-two miles southwest of Bizerte, is still in the possession of the enemy despite intense pressure by Allied forces. The Morocco radio reported tonight that violent fighting was going on in the Mateur sector as the Allies strove to retain their grip on the railroad linking Mateur and Djedeida.