July 12-July 18, 1942

July 12th, 1942...On Guadalcanal, two Japanese Rufe seaplanes spot coastwatcher Don McFarland's hideout on Gold Ridge. The Rufe is quite a machine, maneuverable and well-armed, a seaplane knockoff of the agile Zero. They swoop down to strafe it, causing no casualties, but breaking up the rummy game. McFarland and his team pack their bags in two hours and head south. The move is backbreaking. The lumbering Ken Hay has to be raised and lowered over rough places like bulk cargo.

The New Zealand steamer Hauraki, 7,113 tons, is captured by a Japanese raider.

German tanks are on the move in the Donetz Basin, as Army Group A overruns Lisichensk.

Australian troops reach Kokoda in New Guinea, while US troops of the 41st Infantry Division move to Rockhampton to train.

Rommel attacks at El Alamein, something that is hardly news considering his character, but his 21st Panzer Division runs smack into heavy RAF bombing and artillery. Rommel breaks off the attack "in extremely bad humor."

STAVKA creates the new Stalingrad Front and fills it with divisions drawn from the Moscow reserve. Among the officers sent to command an army in this force is Gen. Vassili Chuikov. He quickly learns that his army must make an immediate force march of 125 miles.

A name that Hitler promised would be eliminated forever gains permanence in the United States. Stern Park Gardens, Illinois, a public housing project of about 100 Czechoslovak homes, is renamed "Lidice."

July 13th, 1942...US Marine Lt. Jonas Platt, exec of USS Washington's Marine Detachment, draws an important assignment. He musters his men at Reykjavik's railway siding to find a boxcar surrounded by Army military police and serious-looking civilians. The boxcar is opened to reveal Iceland's gold reserves. The Marines lug the bars, two on each side, to the battleship, where the bullion is stowed in the battleship's reefer, for passage to the US Federal Reserve vaults in Manhattan's Maiden Lane.

That afternoon, Washington and three destroyers are detached from their duty in Iceland.

Good news for the RAF in the Mediterranean as they announce that the defenders of Malta have shot down 693 German and Italian aircraft.

Rommel tries again with 21st Panzer against the Australians, and gets nowhere mighty fast. Two of his Italian divisions are nearly destroyed, and his armor worn down.

July 14th, 1942...Don McFarland and company straggle into the native village of Bombedea, putting two mountain ranges between himself and the Japanese. The natives refuse to work or supply food. They have paid taxes for years, they tell McFarland, and here is the government running away. McFarland offers to pay for goods. The natives want new Japanese currency.

Back in Australia, plans for battle in New Guinea and Guadalcanal are turning to action. The US 34th Division moves from Adelaide to Brisbane. Task Force 44 leaves Brisbane for New Zealand. Task Force 42 of submarines is ordered to fan out to interdict Japanese shipping. Vice Adm. Robert Ghormley orders 7th Marines on Samoa to be ready to sail for the Solomons on four days' notice.

The panzers continue to roll in Russia, gaining ground against feeble opposition. But there are few prisoners, and the only captured items are flags and broken-down vehicles. The Soviet army is retreating in good order.

Auchinlek attacks (there's a switch in the desert) in an effort to sweep the Italians from Ruweisat Ridge, a series of hammer-blows on different parts of the enemy line, designed not only to bludgeon the point of impact, but gradually wear down Rommel's reserves. Leading the assault is the 8th Army's first team, 2nd NZ Division.

Unfortunately, 2 NZ's CO, Gen. Bernard Freyberg, is out of action, and the attack is poorly planned...the advancing troops will be out of range of their artillery when they reach their objective, Point 63. The night attack is to be supported by 31 Grants and 44 Stuarts and Crusader tanks of 22nd Armoured Brigade. The New Zealanders go forward with their usual ferocity in a silent night attack.

July 15th, 1942...USS Washington, in Iceland, calls away special sea and anchor detail at noon. The ship glides out of Hvalfjordur at 15 knots, headed for New York. That evening, her crew watches Bert Lahr and June Havoc in the movie "Sing Your Worries Away."

At dawn at Alamein's Point 63, the New Zealanders have gained their ridge objectives. 5th Indian Division takes its objectives by noon, capturing 1,000 Italians and four generals. But the 15th Panzer Division counterattacks with all of its 25 tanks and 300 infantrymen. 5 NZ Brigade needs the help of 22nd Armoured Brigade, which is nowhere to be seen. 5 Brigade CO Howard Kippenberger races back to get the tanks.

He finds them four miles away, and the 22nd's boss doing nothing. Kippenberger says his brigade is being attacked from the rear on Ruweisat Ridge and needs immediate help. The brigadier offers to send his reconnaissance tank. Kippenberger says there is no time. The brigadier starts to explain his "difficulties."

As Kippenberger is being bored to death, Gen. Lumsden turns up in his staff car. Kippenberger goes to Lumsden, who calmly unfastens a shovel while listening, and kills a scorpion. After this, he climbs up beside the brigadier on the turret of the lead tank, sticks his index finger on Point 63, and says, "I told you to be there at first light." Kippenberger jumps down. A few minutes later, so does Lumsden. 22nd Brigade finally moves.

But it is too late. 5 Brigade lacks artillery support, is isolated on the ridge, and under heavy enemy fire. The shelling is heavy and continuous, and even the redoubtable Kippenberger later admits that he did not ask for infantry reserves, admitting he has no explanation beyond "It was not a good day for me."

The New Zealanders lose 1,500 officers and men, including two battalion commanders, but hold the high ground. Kippenberger attributes the high casualties to the failure of armor to coordinate with infantry. "There was also a large number of dead, more dead Italians than on any other battlefield I have ever seen," Kippenberger writes, "and many Germans, as the German gunners mostly fought to the death."

Capt. Charles Hazlitt Upham, VC, of Christchurch, leads a series of fanatical charges against the enemy, getting wounded and captured in the process. For this feat, he receives a Bar to his Victoria Cross, the only combatant in World War II (or history) to do so.

Upham will survive captivity, making several escape attempts before being packed off to Colditz, return to New Zealand, and live quietly and modestly until late 1994, refusing all honors offered him. Another New Zealander, Keith Elliott, leads charges that night that help him and his platoon flee surrounding Germans and earn him a Victoria Cross.

German Gen. Fritz Bayerlein later acknowledges "When Rommel lost Tell el Eisa and Ruweisat Ridge, he and all of us know we were lost."

Another big ship heads to sea as USS Enterprise sorties from Pearl Harbor, escorted by Washington's sister ship, USS North Carolina, and the cruisers Portland and Atlanta. Leading Task Force 16 is Rear Adm. Thomas Kinkaid. Next stop is Tonga.

Air Vice Marshal Sir Keith Park, a New Zealander who led No. 11 Fighter Group in the Battle of Britain, is given another tough job, boss of the RAF in Malta.

Don McFarland gets orders from his boss, Royal Australian Navy Cdr. Eric Feldt, by radio. McFarland is to stick it out in Guadalcanal for four more weeks. "It won't be long now," the Australian vice chief of naval staff adds in a separate message. "Things are happening for the best."

German troops seize Boguchar and Millerovo in the Donetz. Panzers drive to cut off Rostov from the east in a classic Blitzkrieg maneuver. This cuts the railroad from Voronezh to Rostov-on-Don, which in turn cuts off Rostov from the world.

British cryptographers at Bletchley Park, doing a vital but secret work, break the German Flak command cipher, and call it "Weasel." Messages sent in "Weasel" give the deployments and assignments of mobile flak units, which include outfits that sport the deadly 88mm gun, which has already taken a huge toll of British tanks in North Africa.

The Nazis despatch the first 2,000 Dutch Jews to Auschwitz. The Jews are told they are going to "labor service" in Germany. Nazi Einsatzkommando killing squads are busy in Russia, too, killing 1,000 Jews at Berez Kartuska, mowing them down in ditches and fields.

July 16th, 1942...The US government breaks off consular relations with Finland, effective Aug. 1st.

In New Zealand, Adm. Ghormley issues Plan No. I-42, which covers Task One of the projected offensive. In typical Navy phraseology, it calls for the invasion of Guadalcanal. Next, it lumps all three American carriers, Enterprise, Saratoga, and Wasp into Task Force 61, under Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher, hero of Midway. TF 61 includes the Air Support Force under Rear Adm. Leigh Noyes and an Amphibious Force, Task Force 62, under Rear Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner, "Terrible Turner," the former Chief of Navy War Plans Division. Task Force 63, under Rear Adm. John S. McCain will command all Allied land-based aircraft in the South Pacific; American, Australian, New Zealand, and French.

Rommel counterattacks to re-take the lost ground on Ruweisat Ridge, and runs smack into British 13th Corps' artillery, including the tough 6-lbr. anti-tank gun. Rommel retreats, leaving behind 24 tanks, including a captured Stuart, six armored cars, six 88 mm guns, 10 other anti-tank guns, and 10 field guns. The Italian 10th Corps is out of the game.

Meanwhile, Australian troops attack and seize Sabratha Division strongpoints, but the ground is not worth holding.

Adolf Hitler transfers the Fuhrer Hauptquartier from the "Wolf's Lair" in the swamps of Rastenberg in East Prussia to a new site, codenamed "Werewolf," at Vinnitsa in the Ukraine, a collection of brand-new wooden barracks amid pine trees. The Fuhrer and his entourage spend the next two months amid swarming flies and mosquitoes. Hitler doesn't know it, but the woods are full of partisans. The partisans don't know Hitler is there. From here, Hitler will oversee the developing Caucasus campaign. He is closer to Moscow than Berlin.

After tea, Der Fuhrer is visited by Heinrich Himmler, who has driven down from his own Tac HQ at Zhitomir. The two discuss what to do with the Caucasus once it's conquered. Himmler notes, "The Fuhrer's view is that we should not visibly incorporate this territory into the German sphere of power, but only militarily secure oil sources and borders." They consider creating puppet states and local military forces drawn from anti-Soviet ethnic groups (primarily Moslem).

July 17th, 1942...Gen. Vassili Chuikov goes off to see what's going on at the front. "I came across two divisional staffs. They consisted of a number of officers travelling in some three to five trucks filled to overflowing with cans of fuel. When I asked them where the Germans were, and where they were going, they could not give me a sensible reply. It was clear that to restore to these men the faith they had lost in their own powers and to improve the fighting quality of the retreating units would not be easy."

At El Alamein, the Australians attack towards Miteiriya, and take a large number of PoWs. Rommel sums up, "Every last German reserve had to be thrown in to beat off the British attacks. Our forces were now so small in comparison with the steadily growing strength of the British, that we were going to have to count ourselves lucky if we managed to go on holding our line at all. As a result of the immense casualties which the Italians had suffered our line was very thinly manned...We had virtually no reserves."

Luftwaffe Field Marshal Albert Kesselring and Field Marshal Ugo Cavallero, the Italian Chief of Staff arrive at Rommel's HQ and argue over the situation. Rommel's continuing battles at Alamein are draining the supply larder and preventing the attack on Malta from being launched. Rommel is warned that his men are near the bottom of the barrel.

Rommel can neither advance nor retreat nor hold. He needs tanks, guns, petrol, ammunition, and troops to hold. Four Italian divisions have been destroyed since July 1. All Commando Supremo has in reserve is the force earmarked to invade Malta, the Ramcke Parachute Brigade and the Italian Folgore Parachute Brigade. They can come forward at once, but without transport. And if they are committed at Alamein, the invasion of Malta must be scrubbed.

Rommel says these tough troops could redress the situation.

Kesselring warns that adding these troops to North Africa puts a greater strain on a logistics chain...and Malta is still there to rip the chain apart. "We just had to have Malta," Kesselring writes later. "Yet the withdrawal of the forces destined for the invasion of the island made this impossible. Even I was eventually forced to decide against it, as the premises for success were just no longer there. The calling off of this undertaking was a mortal blow to the whole North African undertaking. I now urged the resumption of the offensive as vigorously as I had intervened after Tobruk to break it off... With all the immense disadvantages of a purely defensive operation -- which could not solve the supply problem -- there was no choice but to opt for an offensive solution ... the situation in North Africa could only be stabilized if the Egyptian and Mediterranean ports were in our hands."

The invasion of Malta is permanently shelved. Ramcke's paratroopers and the Folgore Brigade will go to Alamein. Rommel is committed to a new offensive in August. It is a turning point of the war.

Heinrich Himmler hits the road again, flying to East Upper Silesia, then off to Auschwitz. There he sees the first 2,000 deported Dutch Jews arrive. He watches as 1,551 of them are tattooed on the forearm and sent to the barracks at Birkenau. The remaining 449 are gassed in the new chambers. Himmler then watches the bodies get thrown into pits, and the gas chamber cleaned for the next passel of victims.

That evening, Himmler is principal guest at a reception for the heads of the SS garrison at Auschwitz. The SS Reichsfuhrer tells his officers of the importance of porridge in daily diet.

July 18th, 1942...The movement order for Operation Providence, occupation of Buna in New Guinea, is issued. The Allies plan to seize it on August 10th. The Japanese will get there first.

Gen. George C. Marshall, Adm. Ernest J. King, and Harry Hopkins arrive in England to urge Winston Churchill to support an invasion of western Europe in 1942, codenamed "Operation Sledgehammer."

Heinrich Himmler is on the inspection trail again, this time being shown the "original" Auschwitz punitive camp for Poles. He asks to see some beatings in order to "determine their effects." He gets the model show. At the end of the visit, he urges the expansion of the barracks at nearby Birkenau and of the armament industry within the camp perimeters, at which the deportees could be put to work. Among the armaments combines making use of slave labor at Auschwitz is the house of Alfried Krupp, the Essen steel and arms magnate who is on his way to becoming the world's single largest slaveholder.

German tanks seize Voroshilovgrad, named after Marshal Klimenti Voroshilov, a coal and coke center in the Donetz basin. They reach the Don at Tsimlyansk.

SS killing squads mow down 600 Jews in Belorussia, but a further 900 flee into nearby forests.

Lt. Gen. Hugh Drum, commanding the US First Army at Fort Hamilton, New York, bans all civilian and military aviation "not necessary to the war effort" in an area extending 40 to 70 miles inland on the East coast from the Canadian border to Carolla, N.C.

While the battle of Ruweisat Ridge sputters out, the British suffer their own internal battles. Infantry and armor do not cooperate. New Zealand infantry particularly hate British armor. The ordinary troops blame each other for failures, too.

An example takes place in a Cairo bar where Australians are testing their capacity for alcohol consumption, when some South African troops walk in. An Australian says, "Sit down, cobber, and take a drink. You look all in. What's the matter -- just run all the way from Tobruk?" The resulting fracas is one of the Middle East's more spectacular bar fights.

To restore order, Auchinlek asks Whitehall for permission to re-introduce the death penalty for desertion. Despite this, 8th Army is still suffering from a lack of clear guidance, coordination, and direction.

Churchill prods Auchinlek to attack and destroy the Afrika Korps. Auchinlek would like to oblige. He has just received the 161st Indian Motor Brigade from Iraq and the 23rd Armoured Brigade at Suez, the latter part of 8th Armoured Division. 23rd has 156 Valentine tanks, still armed with 2-lbr. guns, but fitted with desert filters. Auchinlek has 323 tanks, 61 of them Grants. He works on planning a new offensive.

Rommel writes his wife Lucie, "Yesterday was a particularly hard and critical day. We pulled through again. But it can't go on like it for long, otherwise the front will crack. Militarily, this is the most difficult period I've ever been through. There's help in sight, of course, but whether we will live to see it is a question. You know what an incurable optimist I am. But there are situations where everything is dark. However, this period, too, will pass."