But they were best pals! Okay, he doesn't
have pals... What about Röhm?
Yeah, but look what happend to him! Okay, whatever. I mean they’ve been through like
everything together, you know! Man, okay so who gets the job now?
Zeitzler Who?
Zeitzler Doesn’t ring any bells.
Alright see ya. September 25, 1942 Last week the Battle for the inner city of
Stalingrad began. Now, each week I begin the episode with a “hook”, something new or gripping
or important that happens in the war, right? Well, what more can I say this week-
it’s still the Battle of Stalingrad. I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two. Last week a Japanese sub sank an American carrier, but the American Marines on Guadalcanal were
reinforced anyhow. The Japanese were defeated both on Guadalcanal and the Kokoda Trail,
and the Axis forces advanced in the Caucasus, and began the deadly, brutal, and grinding
attacks on the inner city of Stalingrad. The Soviets are, however, making
serious attacks of their own. 62nd Army Commander Vasily Chuikov plans his
first attack this week to flow from Mameyev Kurgan toward the central railway station to cut
off those German units that are advancing in the city center. It is timed for noon the 19th.
Georgy Zhukov’s forces are attacking as well, southward from the northwest to try to cut off the
invaders and ease pressure on the city. However… (Erickson) “The second attack launched
by the Stalingrad Front with 1st Guards, 66th, and 24th armies, also
timed for noon September 19th, failed again. The German bombers duly turned
away from Stalingrad, but by the early evening they gathered in their accustomed numbers
over the city and Chuikov knew the worst.” His attack does make some progress, but does
not relieve German pressure on the city center. On the 20th, German dive bombers blow up much
of what’s left of the railway station, and the battalion from Soviet 13th Guards that had been
doing the fighting to hold it then cross to the square opposite the station and occupy a building
on the corner, which they call the Nail Factory because they find loads of nails there. They don’t
have water and they aren’t getting any sleep. That night the Germans blow up a
wall and throw in hand grenades. On the 21st those that are still alive are
split in two forces. The battalion HQ is now pinned down near the department store Univermag, inside of which hand to hand combat
with the enemy soon takes place and where the HQ staff is killed, while the rest
of the battalion pulls back toward the Volga step by step, with 40 men and a heavy machine gun
occupying a three story building on the corner of Krasnopiterskaya and Komsomolskaya 200 m from
the water. There they hold the rest of the week, destroying a column of Germans and running out
of ammunition. Spolier- tomorrow German tanks knock the building to the ground. Six Guardsmen
will escape the rubble and make it to the river. Okay, that’s the micro level. By the 21st, the Germans are behind the
railway station in force with armor, but if you think having a bunch of tanks is always
an advantage, it’s also a death trap for the tanks crews sometimes in the narrower streets, as the
Soviets allow the panzers to come right on top of them and their antitank artillery, then fire
away, destroying tanks and isolating infantry. 62nd army’s left flank is in danger of being
turned in the south of the city, where both the German 14th and 24th panzers are fighting, but
the Marines holding the grain elevator down there are somewhat slowing the enemy advance. Thing is,
the Soviets have lost the central landing stage on the river, and the Germans who hold it can watch
and attack the traffic on the Volga to and from 62nd army’s rear, and that ain’t good for Chuikov,
and it ain’t good for his communications either. (Erickson) “Even more serious, the Germans
could be expected to push along the Volga bank north and south of the landing stages
to slice 62nd army away from its ferries.” Chuikov has gotten some reinforcements again-
the 13th Guards have gotten some 2,000 men, and he counterattacks to fix this situation the 23rd,
drive the Germans from the central landing stage, and retake the Tsaritsa River valley. At first
light that morning, the 284th rifle division, Siberians, crosses the river, and as they make
landings the Germans use incendiary bombs to light oil and set the river on fire, and machine
gunners are further up the bank, firing away. A regiment of the rifles does fight its way
up the bank to break them up, though, and then heads on to the southeastern slope of Mameyev
Kurgan, still in Soviet 95th division hands, and at 1000 when Chuikov’s counterattack kicks
off the 95th and 284 push the Germans back toward the railway line and the station. They cannot
fully clear the enemy from the river, however, or make contact with the troops
on the south side of the Tsaritsa. 62nd army’s left flank is still
collapsing in the south. In fact, by the end of the week Soviet resistance
in the southern half of the city has mostly collapsed. The Soviets
hold the area around Mameyev Kurgan, a few pockets in the center, and the factories
and Northern suburbs. And not that much more. So now Friedrich Paulus, German Commander,
shifts his attack toward the northern suburbs of the city, and the three factories south
of Rynok. These huge concrete and steel structures- the Tractor, Barricade, and
Red October factories- are fortresses, as are the huge apartment blocks
of the factory workers, and the steel plant Red October- Krasny Oktyabr-
has its own landing stage on the river. In front of the Barricade factory and the
Tractor Plant, engineers run an anti-tank line and lower-level commanders have orders to be
ready with mines in case of a German breakthrough to sabotage all of the roads and especially
the parks. Most important of all of Chuikov’s preparations, however, is maintaining his river
transport, for without that working 62nd army is dead and buried. Today the order goes out to the
whole army that gasoline and ammunition must be stored more than 500 meters from the banks- it
must not be blown up and affect river shipping. Although let’s be honest, the Luftwaffe is hitting
as much supply as it can on the river, on the east bank, and up to the railway lines there. Red
Air Force fighter planes, armored trains, and whatever AA guns the Soviets can find protect the
Astrakhan and Verkhnyi Basunchak railway Lines, but the Luftwaffe destroys both railway lines
and stations. Trucks drive in supples from 250km away, though, and reinforcements simply march
into the city when the rails can’t bring them in. As for the boats on the Volga, there are the
gunboats of the Volga River Flotilla to fight the enemy, but the barges and fishing boats
doing the ferrying are manned by civilians and under constant fire. 62nd Army is cut off from all
other Soviet armies and surrounded on three sides, but they have the Volga at their back and
the precarious lifeline of the ferries. As the week draws to its close, Chuikov reinforces
from the Mechetka River to the Mameyev Kurgan. 11 German divisions stand before 62nd
Army, and they will strike very very soon. The Axis are striking this week in the Caucasus. Richard Ruoff’s 17th army finally gets
going after weeks of inaction on the 23rd with Operation Attika, sending two infantry
divisions down the Psekups River Valley, who make little headway by the
week’s end. His goal is Tuapse, but that might no loner be feasible, for the
Soviets have used the respite to reinforce. Just recently Adolf Hitler fired
Wilhlem List as Army Group A Commander and took over personal control of
it. The main reason given was his anger and dissatisfaction with the progress of the
Caucasus campaign. He’s not any happier this week. “The dictator’s anger did not stop with
one victim. He refused to shake hands or even eat meals with his generals, isolating
himself from their advice. Hitler spoke openly of replacing all three of his principal
assistants- Keitel and Jodl at OKW and Halder at OKH. Emotionally exhausted,
Halder acquiesced and turned over his position to Colonel General Kurt
Zeitzler effective September 24.” Yep, Franz Halder, Chief of Staff since the
beginning of the war over three years ago, is gone. There are several higher
ranking officers than Zeitzler, but Albert Speer explains perhaps why
Hitler chooses Zeitzler over them, for he “doesn’t go and brood on my orders,
but energetically sees to carrying them out.” German High Command is not the only
one frustrated by lack of success. Kiotake Kawaguchi failed last week in his attempt
to take or destroy Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, and Japanese High Command- again-
have a hard time believing it. “…thinking at Imperial Headquarters,
the Combined Fleet, and the 17th Army meshed into a scheme for a concerted
effort to regain Guadalcanal, and indeed, extend Japanese holdings farther into the
South Pacific. The Naval General Staff now saw Guadalcanal as the chosen site of the
anticipated all out American counterattack; it might be the decisive battle of the war. The
Imperial Navy resolved to recapture Guadalcanal and girded itself to meet the
total American commitment in kind by tossing in every plane and literally bringing
its big guns to bear on the Marine perimeter.” The Navy asks the Army for ground units, and
the Army thinks that since the Soviet-German war looks likely to go on into the winter, they’ll
see what they can spare and bring it south, even from Manchuria. At Rabaul, 17th
army and the 8th Fleet make new plans. Forget Port Moresby, it’s all Guadalcanal now. On the 19th, the 8th Central Agreement is issued
in Tokyo. It is the plans for Operation KA, the recapture of Guadalcanal, but that’s
only part of the overall plan. The navy will cut off the supply of American reinforcements
and then they will also take Rabi, Port Moresby, San Cristobal, and the Russell Islands. 17th
Army is beefed up with the 38th Division, who took Hong Kong last December, and the
8th Tank Regiment. The idea is to have all the reinforcements in place by
October 14th so they can attack the 20th. Six transports will bring the men and
Harukichi Hyukutake expects both air and artillery support from the Combined Fleet. Some of the Admirals balk at this since they
don’t want to expose the carriers to land based aircraft, but by the end of the week Combined
Fleet Commander Isoroku Yamamoto is convinced. As for the American Marines on
the island itself, on the 19th they revise their deployment, since they now have
10 battalions of infantry, a Raider battalion, and a tank and several artillery battalions,
so they set up now a full perimeter defense. They haven’t done this before. Actually,
Richard Frank points out that this doing so against all principles of modern warfare-
building a long, thinly defended line, which is totally vulnerable to an enemy
that masses its force against one point. But Marine commander Alexander Vandegrift
and his staff throw that out the window. They figure that their pilots and planes prevent
a landing on the seaward side of the perimeter, and since the Japanese seem to favor
unopposed landings and then assaults overland, they also figure that’s gonna continue, and
since attacks from the south across the jungle would likely be unsuppliable and impossible,
they’ll prepare for attacks from the east or west at crossing points on the
Tenaru or Matanikau Rivers. “The critical issue in defensive
arrangements is usually reserves, and here the Marine plan favored practical reality
over theoretical elegance. The cordon defense allowed a degree of economy of force both because
it permitted unusually long frontage assignments and because Marine command could thin
to the bone unthreatened sectors…” The Japanese are still bringing in supplies
to their own men on the island, though. Well, they have to eat. On the 20th, 4 destroyers
towing barges and on the 21st 4 destroyers make runs to Kamimbo. These are attacked by SBD
planes and the second run has to head back still carrying a third of the supplies. On the
24th comes another run, with 280 infantrymen and construction equipment. The planes damage
two destroyers and kill 14 men, and although this so far doesn’t sound like it’s a ton of
damage, the pilots are getting ever better at night flying and attacking and the full moon is
soon to come. Shintaro Hashimoto, who commands what the Marines refer to as the Tokyo Express,
cancels all supply runs for the rest of the month. As for Kawaguchi, his force is recovering from
last week’s defeat. He gets word the 24th from Japanese intel that it’s very possible
the Allies will attempt a landing between Matanikau and Kamimbo, so he sends a bunch of
his units to man the high ground on the coast to fight off any landing. The next day, he gets
orders to take points on the east bank of the Matanikau so he can bring artillery close enough
to shell Henderson Field. This of course conflicts with the orders to prevent a landing. He does have
other problems, though he is not yet aware of it, as a detachment of the 7th Marines heads
out the 23rd to cross the Matanikau and prevent the Japanese from establishing
themselves within attack range of the perimeter. So the Allies are going to go
over to the offensive there, but that’s not the only place. On
the Kokoda Trail they will as well. American reinforcements land at Port Moresby,
and Australian Commander Thomas Blamey is now in personal charge with orders from
Douglas MacArthur to simply get the job done. And here are a couple of notes to end the week. One the 23rd, in Madagascar,
British troops take the capital, Tannanarive from the Vichy French. That same day, Erwin Rommel heads from North Africa to Germany
for medical treatment; he is suffering from exhaustion and has a liver infection. Georg
Stumme takes over his command in his absence. And this week of the war comes to an end. With
brutal close quarters fighting in Stalingrad bringing parts of the city under Axis control even
as the Soviets bring in ever more reinforcements. The Japanese plans for retaking
Guadalcanal grow ever larger, but it is the Allies that
are to go on the offensive. And Franz Halder is no longer Chief of the General
Staff. He has been Hitler’s close sidekick this whole war., though lately their relations have
grown more and more strained. It was Halder who planned and directed Barbarossa; Halder who
issued the Commissar Order and Barbarossa Decree, directing enormous war crimes and
crimes against humanity in the east, Halder who directed Operation Typhoon, and Halder
who’s been keeping his diary this whole time, excerpts from which I’ve read occasionally. You
can actually read all six volumes of his war diary 1939-1942 in English on line; it’s easy enough
to find. The final entry is for September 24th, 1942. It reads: “After situation conference;
farewell by the fuhrer: my nerves are worn out, also his nerves are no longer fresh. We must
part. Necessity for educating the General Staff in fanatical faith in the Idea. He is
determined to enforce his will also in the army.” Franz Halder was very much part
of the War Against Humanity. That is also the title of a subseries we
have here that comes out every other week that goes over the atrocities committed
across the globe during this war. There was no “clean Wehrmacht”, contrary
to Halder’s postwar revisionist claims. The evidence is overwhelming. You can see
more about that right here (link to WAH 12) Our TimeGhost Army member of
the week is Juuso Killström. It is the army members like Juuso that make
it possible for us to do the work we do, so join the army at patreon.com or timeghost,tv
so we can continue to do it. See you next time.
I like hearing the other end of the intro phone call! Great audio effect.