Japanese troops continue to advance in New Guinea, hacking down the Kokoda Trail. It takes an hour to cut through a few yards of vegetation. The first man in a file will hack away with a machete until collapsing from exhaustion; then the second man picks up the machete and continues. The life expectancy of the man who loses consciousness and is often left behind can be measured in minutes.

Officers smear yellow-green, bioluminescent microorganisms so as to read maps at nights.

Allied troops call themselves "Swamp Rats," suffering tropical ulcers. Waving away clouds of flies and mosquitoes is called the "New Guinea salute." Men have to pull off leeches at night, avoid crocodiles, fleas, biting ants, chiggers, poisonous spiders, and tangled vines. Native bearers are reluctant to go near the front line, so soldiers carry up to 100 lbs. on their back, suffering 100 degree temperatures, scrub typhus, dysentery, ringworm, and malaria. For every man wounded in battle, five are laid low from illness.

Operation Bluebottle succeeds off Vichy France's Perpignan beach, when the British HMS Tarana takes British PoWs out of Vichy territory.

Less successful is Operation Agreement, a raid on Benghazi, Barce, and Tobruk by British commandos. Like the Japanese on Guadalcanal, the British take advantage of the moonless night to hurl British, Rhodesian, and New Zealand raiders at these three ports.

The attack on Barce features New Zealanders, and they charge into town, destroying more than 30 aircraft parked on the airfield. This raid is a success.

At Benghazi, Lt. Col. David Stirling leads 200 SAS men and Commandos in 40 trucks and 40 jeeps. They run into heavy Italian fire and have to withdraw.

The attack on Tobruk is best remembered, as it was made into a feature film of the same name with George Peppard. The objective is to destroy oil stores, and the idea is to bring in a force of raiders disguised as British PoWs. Their "captors" are Palestinian Jews of German descent. They will be joined by a seaborne party of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who are to take the harbor, hold it for 12 hours, and destroy Rommel's oil supplies. The Royal Navy moves in with destroyers and the AA cruiser HMS Coventry.

Tobruk, the British believe, is defended by 1,000 German logistics technicians and two battalions of Italian infantry.

The British land force moves in with discretion and fake papers, and into town under cover of an air raid. In the chaos, the British reach their position on the eastern side of Tobruk's cove, destroying German defenses. Two destroyers, HMS Sikh and HMS Zulu, sail in to unload their troops at 3 a.m. and instead come under heavy German fire. The Germans know the attack is coming from their agents in Cairo and Alexandria. Sikh is crippled. Zulu tires to save her, but fails. Sikh is abandoned at 7 a.m.

The British troops ashore, expecting to be evacuated, are now trapped, and fight their way out, with little success. Only six men make it back to British lines, doing so on foot. The Luftwaffe catch Zulu and Coventry enroute home, and sink both. German troops have to protect the Italians, who want to lynch the British, angry over the attack. "It was a very good fight," a German officer tells a British sergeant. "You were two hours late. Why was that?" asks an Italian intelligence officer.

The raids are failures, losing two destroyers and a cruiser, and hundreds of men, but Rommel is forced to defend his rear with greater forces.

The same day, the King awards the entire island of Malta the George Cross (first of the war, reportedly) for the island's gallantry during the siege.

The Germans attack for a final concentrated effort to drive the defenders of Stalingrad into the Volga. The German objective is a grassy hillock of parkland that dominates the center of town, called Mamayev Kurgan. Meanwhile, General Vassili Chuikov, new commander of the 62nd Army, plans a counterattack.

Chuikov finds the army weak and dispirited from pounding. Fortunately, help is on the way - 10 infantry divisions and two armored corps from across the river in two weeks.

That evening, the RAF makes its 100th air raid of the war on Germany, hitting Bremen.

While RAF bombers pound Bremen, Marshal Georgy K. Zhukov reports in Moscow to Josef Stalin on his plan for Stalingrad. As long as an active defense can be maintained in the city, he says, large reserve forces can be massed to the north and southeast, to mount a counteroffensive against the German flank, cutting the umbilical cord of supplies and reinforcements, encircling the Germans. The attack would hammer weak Rumanian, Hungarian, and Italian divisions, Zhukov says, and would have to be made only when adequate preparations are completed, in mid-November. Stalin is skeptical, but wants to hear more.

Over the Aleutians, an LB-30 Liberator on a photo-recon mission, escorted by two P-38 Lightnings, meets up with two Japanese Zeroes over Umnak. One Zero parallels the LB-30 course until the bomber's waist gun opens up. Both flee. Two more Zeros turn up, and the LB-30 spots two more fighters flying under a cloud base. The pilot, Lt. Lucian Wernick, assumes they are friendly and flies straight towards them. They turn out to be Zeros. One flees, and the other attacks the B-24. The LB-30 turns in on the Zero, giving it the smallest target and shortest possible time-to-target, flying a collision course to the Zero. The Japanese pilot flees. American newspapers pick up the story (in October) and call Wernick "the only four-engine pursuit pilot in the air force."

At five minutes past midnight, Japanese ships open fire on Guadalcanal. Three battalions are supposed to attack Henderson Field from the south, but the exhausted troops scatter amid the vast jungle, ending coordination. The Japanese charge in, moving up the Lunga River streambed through the jungle. The river moves too fast, and the Japanese attack peters out. Exasperated, Kawaguchi later says, "Because of the devilish jungle, the brigade was scattered all over and completely beyond control. In my whole life I have never felt so helpless."

In the morning, the Americans still await the main attack. A C-47 arrives from Noumea bringing hundreds of Army cavalry sabers that have mysteriously found their way to the South Pacific. The Marines are actually grateful: the sabers can be used as machetes.

Vice Adm. Richmond K. Turner and Maj. Gen. Archibald Vandegrift discuss where the 7th Marines should land. "Right in the perimeter," Vandegrift says. Vandegrift tells seniors and subordinates that he will fight to the end, and if necessary, send the men scattering into the hills to fight on. No surrender.

Gen. Roy S. Geiger, the top airman, says, "Archer, if we can't use the planes back in the hills I'll fly them out, but whatever happens I'm staying here with you."

In the morning, Col. Red Mike Edson sits on a log eating cold meat and potatoes. He tells his men, "They were testing, just testing. They'll be back. I want all positions improved, all wire lines paralleled, a hot meal for the men. Today we dig, wire up tight, get some sleep. We'll all need it."

That evening Edson withdraws his men 200 yards onto stronger ground to present the enemy with a new and unfamiliar front. His men deploy in small platoon-sized groups with clear fields of fire. The men are glassy-eyed, mumbling their words and displaying the mechanical high-stepping gait of utter exhaustion. Men with temperatures of 105 are sent in the line.

The sun sets at 6:30 and the Japanese 1st Battalion, 124th Regiment, surges into a 200-yard-wide gap between two Marine companies, led by their sword-wielding Major Kokusho. Two full battalions of Japanese attack 300 American Marines at midnight.

Sept. 14th, 1942....A few minutes after crossing the dateline, Washington goes to General Quarters for anchoring, and the battleship drops anchor at 1:46 p.m. in Nukualofa anchorage, Tongatabu, Tonga Islands. Engineman Johnny Brown hikes up on deck to see a panorama of white sand beaches and endless groves of coconut palms.

Half an hour after the ship anchors, Washington sideboys and boatswain's mates line the quarterdeck entry port, with Capt. Glenn Davis and his officers. In a flurry of ruffles and bosun's calls, bespectacled, grinning, Rear Adm. Willis Augustus "Ching Chong China" Lee, clutching a Phillip Morris cigarette, climbs aboard. Lee's two-star flag is broken from the main truck, and Washington is flagship of Battleship Division 6 and Task Group 12.2.

After Lee heads down to flag country, some less exalted Sailors arrive, survivors of the Savo Island debacle, who tell Washington Sailors of the hell of Guadalcanal...men kept continuously at battle stations, watch after watch, with little food and no sleep, just dropping from exhaustion, and how flammable materials set powerful cruisers on fire.

Adak launches two squadrons of heavy bombers and 28 fighters in its first raid, a combined maximum effort, the first combined zero-altitude strike of World War II. 14 P-38 Lightnings and 14 P-39s (the latter making their Aleutian debut) escort 12 B-24s into the attack on Kiska, planes zooming in at 50 feet, under enemy flak. The Americans hammer Kiska with heavy ordnance in a three-minute strike that sinks two Japanese ships, sets three others afire, destroys three midget submarines and their pens, collapses six AA guns, burns a dozen buildings, and kills and wounds 200 defenders.

The P-38s come in low, strafe the harbor, and chew up seven anchored Rufe seaplane fighters, while the P-39s dogfight with five airborne Rufes. Normally the P-39s are easy meat, but the Japanese pilots are weatherbeaten, fatigued, and outnumbered. All five go down in flames. Two P-38s collide, killing Major W.M. Jackson, commanding 54th Fighter Squadron.

The American tactic (which uses delay-action bombs) is so successful, the Air Force starts using it through the Pacific, to great effect.

At New Hebrides, US Navy transports weigh anchor to finally bring reinforcements to Guadalcanal, in the form of the 7th Marine Regiment.

On Guadalcanal's Bloody Ridge, as the Japanese charge, American artillery opens up. Despite fearful losses, the Japanese keep coming, shouting, "Totsugeki!" which is Japanese for "Charge!"

The Americans hear this as "Gas attack!" and an American Marine yells "I'll gas you, you creep!" Japanese troops slither around the American left flank, and the main weight falls on the Marine Raiders. "Marine, you die!" Japanese troops howl. "Roosevelt die! Marine, you die with knife! Babe Ruth is coward!"

The Japanese advance at the crouch, firing red and calcium flares. Marines pull pins on grenades and roll them down the hill into the enemy. Casualties on both sides are immense. Behind US lines, Lt. Cdr. E.P. McLarney, a Navy doctor, and several Navy medics dress wounds and give transfusions by flashlight.

At 2 a.m., a Japanese mortar barrage drenches the ridge and cuts telephone wires. Linemen struggle with wire under fire to get word through at 3 a.m. that grenades and machine gun ammunition is almost gone. As Edson talks to one of his officers by phone, a voice says, "our situation here, Colonel Edson, is excellent. Thank you, sir." That can be no Marine. The Japanese have tapped the phone.

Edson orders the Marine Raider company to pull back. Marine Parachutist Major Harry Torgerson bellows "Red Mike says it's okay to pull back!" The Marines execute one of the most tricky operations, night withdrawal under fire, and restore the line.

Edson sees two Marines scrambling to the rear, and yells, "The only thing the Japs have that you don't is guts!" The marines go back to the front.

The Japanese are now running out of men and night. Japanese troops attack, fall back, regroup, and attack again, felled by machine guns and artillery. One group of Japanese attackers is stopped by a small pile of American rations, and the Japanese stop to eat bully beef and smoke cigarettes.

War correspondent Gen Nishino joins a charge with Kawaguchi himself and 800 men. The Japanese charge forward in the dark and right into an area marked off by American artillery. Machine guns rip through the bush, the ground shakes like an earthquake, toppling trees and spewing red-hot shrapnel in all directions. Kawaguchi cannot turn back. He charges on, as his men die.

A soldier runs up to Nishino, pleading for water and his mother, clutching Nishino's leg with one arm. The other arm is shot off. Nishino shakes his canteen. Empty. He puts the damp spout to the soldier's dry lips. The soldier gulps, smiles, and dies.

At dawn Nishino comes under mortar fire. One shell hurls Nishino into the air. To the war correspondent, it is like being in a slow-motion movie. He lands on some leaves, and regains consciousness. He can just make out the end of Henderson Field's runway in the distance, less than half a mile away. But the attack is defeated. Nishino crawls back to the rear.

Major Kokusho leads a charge personally to seize American AA guns, trailing infantrymen and some artillery gunners armed with bamboo spears. This motley but fanatical crew charges into an American position. They leap onto a second gun, where Kokusho raises his sword as a grenade goes off in his face. He tumbles to the ground, mumbling "Totsugeki, Totsugeki," and dies, sword in hand. His men are killed when the Marine Headquarters Company counterattacks.

Edson picks up his phone and tells Vandegrift, "We can hold." American artillery continues to shred attacking forces as dawn nears.

When the sun climbs into the sky, three battered P-400s claw into the air to harry the Japanese with 20mm fire. They skim over jungle ridges to see smoldering grass fires, expended cartridges, and the bodies of over 500 Japanese lying like a carpet in places, some entangled with Marines in hand-to-hand combat.

One more attack would have driven Edson's men off the ridge. But Kawaguchi's communications and organization is a mess. He has a complete battalion ready to charge in, but it never moves.

By 8 a.m., the battle of "Bloody Ridge" is over. US troops move in to collect the wounded. Of 397 US Marine Parachutists that went ashore at Tamambogo in August, only 86 walk off Bloody Ridge.

As US troops move in, wounded and dying Japanese try to take one last American with them. Three Japanese charge out of nowhere to attack Vandegrift himself...the general and his staff shoot them down at point-blank range.

Vandegrift has no reserves to follow up this victory. Vandegrift sends in his six light tanks, but three fall to anti- tank guns.

That day, the Japanese make one more air strike, with two floatplane Zeros and 17 biplane Petes to attack Henderson Field. They run into 10 F4Fs, and lose four aircraft.

The battle of Bloody Ridge is done, and the Japanese have lost at least 1,200 dead and wounded, out of 6,005 attackers. American casualties seem to be 59 dead or missing and 263 total.

Kawaguchi's men, expecting to dine on captured American rations, are now out of food. Nearly every soldier is employed in carrying the wounded back, which is a five-day struggle through jungle ridges and jungle streams. Lacking "even one grain of rice" to sustain them, the Japanese eat betel nuts and weeds, and sometimes kill fish with grenades.

Wounded men on the swaying and jolting litters die of untreated wounds. The attack is a complete failure. Kawaguchi asks for more men from Imperial General Headquarters. They agree to send them.

Years later, Edson, hero of the battle, takes his own life.

Chuikov's big counterattack in Stalingrad is forestalled at 6:30 a.m. by a German two-pronged attack by 51st Corps. Two panzer and one motorized division deliver the punchy, overrunning forward defenses, the Machine-Tractor Station, and the housing estate. Chuikov's CP at Mamayev Kurgan comes under massive gunfire, its communications knocked out. The general does not know what is going on. Chuikov doesn't even have time to eat, breakfast is destroyed by a bomb, dinner receives a mortar hit. He moves his HQ to a bunker on the river Tsaritsa, and tells his troops to fight to the last man.

They do. Soviets are holding on at the edge of the "Barricades" and "Red October" factories, turning the concrete monoliths into bunkers. The most vicious fighting of the entire war is taking place. In three days the Central Station will change hands 15 times.

Chuikov writes: "Lorryloads of infantry and tanks tore through the city. The Germans obviously thought that the fate of the town had been settled, and they all rushed to the center and the Volga as soon as possible and grabbed souvenirs for themselves ... we saw drunken Germans jumping down from their lorries, playing mouth organs, shouting like madmen and dancing on the pavements."

The only reinforcements at hand enter the fighting, Gen. Alexander Rodimtsev's 13th Guards Division. Rodimtsev is familiar with street fighting from the Spanish Civil War. His division moves across the river at dusk, to reinforce a line held by a mere 15 tanks. The 13th arrives in pieces, its men straight from a gruelling force march. One thousand of its men have no rifles, and the rest are short of ammunition.

Chuikov sends this questionable band straight into the battle. The division is inexperienced, and lacks both maps and knowledge of Stalingrad's blitzed terrain. Even so, the division stems the German threat, aided by Chuikov's headquarters company and staff officers. Chuikov is running out of troops. He sends in 1,500 armed police, firefighters, and factory workers from an NKVD division, and they are assigned to large buildings to defend them.

Despite these measures, the Germans advance. The 71st Infantry Division moves to within 500 yards of Chuikov's bunker. Chuikov can easily hear the rattle of small arms fire. All 15 tanks are knocked out. Chuikov orders the last one, which can fire but not move, to fight on as darkness descends.

13th Guards Division takes nearly 100 percent casualties, but its sacrifice holds off the Germans. The battle rages on into the night.

Sept. 15th, 1942....Nine Japanese submarines lie in wait between New Hebrides and Guadalcanal, an area known as "Torpedo Junction" for US convoys. Their patience is rewarded at 12:50 when I-19 under Cdr. Takaichi Kinashi spots the fleet carrier USS Wasp. The carrier is turning into the wind for flight operations.

At 2:45 p.m., Kinashi looses off six Model 95 Long Lance torpedoes, one of the deadliest and most successful spreads in history. The fish hit the carrier Wasp, fast new battleship USS North Carolina, the destroyer O'Brien, and just miss the carrier Hornet, most of the US Pacific Fleet's first team.

O'Brien takes the hit in the bow, which only wounds two. The ship staggers out of battle, but sinks on the way home.

North Carolina suffers a 32-by-18 foot hole below the waterline which distorts the roller path of 15-inch turret No. 1. The battleship takes a 5.5-degree list and loses five men. The tough new ship surges forward at 25 knots.

But it is Wasp that is hurt most. Ensign C.G. Durr points out the tracks to Adm. Leigh Noyes and says, "Those have got us!" A moment later, the torpedoes hit starboard side forward, exploding gasoline and bomb storage areas, sending shockwaves through the ship. Planes leap into the air, fuel rains out of burst pipes, and then rips into flame moments later, setting off a string of spectacular explosions.

Officers and men battle the rain of exploding oil and ammunition to fight the fire, but there is no way to fight the blaze. Abandon ship is ordered at 3:20. Out of 2,247 men, only 173 are lost, but 400 are injured. All but one of Wasp's 26 airborne planes are recovered by Hornet, but the other 45 go down with the ship.

Wasp is out of the game permanently. North Carolina has to withdraw to the States for repairs. The US Pacific Fleet is down to one carrier (Hornet) and one battleship (Washington). The Japanese Navy now has a golden opportunity.

The US Navy reacts by requesting a carrier from the Royal Navy. The British are happy to oblige, and despatch HMS Victorious to Norfolk. This carrier, which has fought the Bismarck and Tirpitz, features an armored flight deck and a well- trained crew. However, it has only half the aircraft of an American carrier. While its new Seafire fighters are superior to the Zero, Victorious still flies ancient Swordfish torpedo planes off her flight decks -- slow-moving biplanes. Even so, as Swordfish veterans will point out, this type of aircraft racks up the highest tonnage of ships sunk of any type during the war.

However, Victorious will take weeks to train on American operational techniques and signal systems before being able to go to the Pacific.

That evening, Washington's Capt. Davis gets the word of the latest disasters in the South Pacific. "Gentlemen, we are now the heavy forces," Davis tells his stunned officers.

Also that evening, Japanese troops land 1,000 men of the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment on Guadalcanal.

During the day, Kawaguchi, uniform in tatters, faces the battlefield, and bows his head to pray for his dead. Then he begins the withdrawal. Hundreds of walking wounded have collapsed, and exhausted stretcher bearers have to abandon scores of others on the trail. There is no order on this march. Nishino's left arm is useless and he is weak from malaria. Weighted down by his heavy money belt of 50,000 yen, he struggles along the slopes of Mount Austen, through endless jungles. There is nothing to eat but grass, moss, and betel nut.

The news of Kawaguchi's failure rockets up the Japanese chain of command, causing shock and incredulity. The invincible Japanese Army has again been defeated by the Americans. Chief of Staff Gen Sugiyama buckles on his dress sword and ribbons and explains the catastrophe to the emperor, blaming the mess on poor communications and superior American firepower. Heretofore Japanese determined tactics have triumphed over Western forces that lacked training, motivation, and most importantly, supporting air and artillery arms. Now the American ability to produce a massive war machine is beginning to blunt Japanese ferocity.

Sugiyama tells His Majesty that more troops will go to Guadalcanal. First will be the 38th Division, which has finally recovered from its ordeal of conquering Hong Kong. However, 38th has been training for an invasion of Ceylon. That is now cancelled. The Navy will also cooperate in the drive to recapture Guadalcanal. Once Guadalcanal is recaptured, the offensive will continue south to cut off Australia. The entire evolution is codenamed "Operation KA."

Sent down to 17th Army as operations officer is Col. Masanobu Tsuji, a ferocious officer linked to Prime Minister Tojo himself, with a reputation for tactical brilliance and political reliability.

The battle for Stalingrad rages on in the early hours of the morning. German machine guns rake the Soviet landing stage.

"We would spend the whole day clearing a street, from one end to the other, establish blocks and fire-points at the western end, and prepare for another slice of the salami the next day, but at dawn the Russians would start up firing from their old positions at the far end! It took us some time to discover their trick; they had knocked communicating holes through between the garrets and attics and during the night they would run back like rats in the rafters, and set their machine guns up behind some topmost window or broken chimney," writes a German soldier.

The Mamayev Kurgan battle goes on and on all day, as Rodimtsev's men die in place, fending off 22nd Panzers. The Germans finally take the high ground.

At Chuikov's headquarters, the general himself leads the defense, but exhausted headquarters troops begin making excuses to come into the bunker on "urgent business." Chuikov gets the point and sets up a secondary CP on the opposite bank of the Volga.

The 42nd Soviet Regiment comes over the river and digs in.

Sept. 16th, 1942....USS Washington takes on 1.5 million gallons of oil from tanker Gulf Queen and tops off her flak magazines as well. At 4 p.m., Task Group 12.2, the "heavy forces," Washington, Meade, Barton, Nicholas, steam out of harbor, on course 238T, at 17 knots. Half an hour before sunset, the boatswain's mate of the watch whistles into the bridge speaker and orders, "Now darken ship; the smoking lamp is out on all weather decks." Five minutes later, all hands are piped to general quarters.

At dawn in Stalingrad, the 42nd Regiment attacks into a hurricane of mortar fire, seeking the top of Mamayev Kurgan. A short and vicious hand-to-hand battle settles the issue, and Soviet troops gain the summit.

In the leading platoon, 30 men begin the advance. Six achieve the top. As soon as they dig in, the Germans counterattack, but the Soviet hold on.

"Our battalion, plus tanks, is attacking the grain elevator, from which smoke is pouring -- the grain in it is burning, the Russians seem to have set light to it themselves. Barbarism. The battalion is suffering heavy losses," a German officer writes. "There are not more than 60 men left in each company. The elevator is occupied not by men but by devils that no flames or bullets can destroy."

At Stalingrad-1 Railway Station, the 24th Panzer Division smacks into parts of 13 Guards. 20 tanks drive the soviets out of the buildings. The Soviets counterattack, and recover the station. The Germans counterattack, and regain it. The station changes hands four times that day. At dusk, it is surrounded by hundreds of burned bodies and burnt-out tanks, but the Soviets hold the station. No word on when train services will resume.

The day ends with both sides in a state of mutual exhaustion, the city continuing to blaze.

Sept. 17th, 1942....USS Washington opens the day half an hour before dawn by sounding GQ. It will do so for every day of the rest of the war. The battleship stages AA practice that morning, amid difficult winds. But the 1.1-inch gunners hit all targets. At 1:13 p.m., Washington hooks up with Hornet and her escorts, cruisers San Francisco, Pensacola, Juneau, San Diego, 11 destroyers, and two fleet oilers. Washington and her consorts sail with them to the New Hebrides.

The 24th NZ Battalion, in Egypt, reorganized after its losses, rejoins 6 Brigade.

At Stalingrad, the Luftwaffe shows up right on time at dawn and is gone by 8 a.m. Battles rage at Mamayev Kurgan and the railroad station. At day's end, Chuikov tallies his numbers: 13th Guards is permanently out of the game.

At El Alamein, the Germans are deploying gigantic minefields (nearly half a million) and rolls of barbed wire. 95 percent of the mines are of the anti-tank variety. The British train hard on mine clearance. Gen. Bernard Montgomery writes, "This battle will involve hard and prolonged fighting. Our troops must not think that, because we have a very good tank and very powerful artillery support, the enemy will surrender. The enemy will NOT surrender, and there will be bitter fighting. The Infantry must be prepared to fight and kill, and to continue doing so over a prolonged period..."

Sept. 18th, 1942....Adolf Hitler briefs his headquarters staff on some plans, and one of them is to "destroy Russia's cities as a prerequisite to the lasting German domination of the country."

Nazi Minister of Justice and SS Maj. Gen. Otto Thierack and Heinrich Himmler work on out a plan to deliver "asocials" for "execution of their sentences." Under Nazi theory, "asocials" are Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Russians, Poles, Czechs, and Germans serving more than three years in prison for civil crimes. Their sentences are to be "forced labor in conditions of such severity and lack of medical help or sustenance that hundreds of thousands are to die." Thierack adds that to make newly-conquered territories in the East "fit" for German settlers and colonization, "Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Russians, and Ukrainians convicted of offenses should not be sentenced by ordinary courts but should be executed..."

In Stalingrad, the battles for the grain elevator continue to rage. "Fighting is going on inside the elevator. The Russians inside are condemned men; the battalion commander says: 'The commissars have ordered those men to die in the elevator.'

"If all the buildings of Stalingrad are defended like this, then none of our soldiers will get back to Germany. I had a letter from Elsa today. She's expecting me home when victory's won."

"At dawn a German tank carrying a white flag approached from the south. We wondered what could have happened. Two men emerged from a tank, a Nazi officer and an interpreter. Through the interpreter the officer tried to persuade us to surrender to 'the heroic German army,' as defense was useless and we would not be able to hold our position any longer. 'Better to surrender the elevator,' affirmed the German officer. 'If you refuse you will be dealt with without mercy. In an hour's time we will bomb you out of existence.'" So writes Andrew Khozyaynov, a Soviet Marine, defending the grain elevator.

"'What impudence,' we thought, and gave the Nazi lieutenant a brief answer: 'Tell all your Nazis to go to hell! You can go back, but only on foot.'

"The German tank tried to beat a retreat, but a salvo from our two anti-tank rifles stopped it." The Germans make 10 attacks on the elevator. All fail. As the grain burns, the water in the machine guns evaporate, leaving all, especially the wounded, thirsty. "Heat, smoke, thirst -- all our lips were cracked."

At 7 a.m. in the morning, Turner's resolution pays off. His unsupported convoy sweeps into Ironbottom Sound and unloads the 7th Marines. 4,157 fresh Leathernecks arrive with 137 vehicles, 4,323 barrels of fuel, rations, and 60 percent of the regiment's tentage. The ships take out survivors of the 1st Marine Parachute Battalion. These malarial men are barely able to climb up cargo nets. Six TBFs from Hornet fly in to reinforce the Cactus Air Force.

For the first time, Vandegrift feels in control of the situation. He has 23,000 men including the 7th Marines and an aggressive air force. Hanson Baldwin, the New York Times writer assigned to Guadalcanal, tells Vandegrift that Washington and Ghormley in Noumea are alarmed at the situation on the island.

Vandegrift says he can "neither understand nor condone such an attitude." It is clear that the seizure of Guadalcanal has taken the Japanese "away off guard."

"Are you going to hold this beachhead?" Baldwin asks. "Hell, yes. Why not?"

Sept. 19th, 1942....Several hundred of 3,000 Jews on a transport from Brody in Galicia break out of their deportation train. The SS machine-gun the lot.

That same day, as 5,000 Jews are deported from a Polish town toward Treblinka, several hundred manage to escape to the relative safety of a "family camp" set up deep in the forest. Most are killed a month later in a German anti-partisan sweep.

With 62nd Army taking a beating, Col. Gen. Andrei Yeremenko, head of the Stalingrad Front, mounts a full scale attack, to link up with the battered army. Three divisions and a tank brigade attack Mamayev Kurgan, but are defeated by German anti-tank guns. Chuikov and Yeremenko blame each other for the failure in their memoirs.

Both sides change tactics to cope with Stalingrad's distinctive terrain. The Germans, baffled, move in specialist troops, some of them police battalions, engineers, and even Luftwaffe ground forces skilled in street fighting and demolition work.

The Soviets form "Storm Groups" of men with mixed arms, and develop "killing zones," houses and squares heavily mined and to which the defenders know all the approach routes, canalizing and blunting German attacks. Another Soviet advantage: all their weapons are 7.62mm caliber, easing re-supply.

While the stalemate continues at El Alamein, preparations for the Allied invasion of North Africa continue. Named to lead the invasion force at Morocco's Casablanca is Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, who addresses the 9th US Infantry Division that day. "The General's speech that sunny fall day was a little different from the movie version," an officer writes, "For one thing it was bloodier. He suggested ways to make the enemy suffer. And he closed by quoting part of Kipling's 'Recessional.' At the end every man in the combat team cheered, a genuinely spontaneous cheer. And there were cries of 'More! More!' ... The general grinned and came down the steps, entered his car, and was gone. The troops were dismissed but the excitement lingered. They were talking and laughing and letting off steam. Never before had they heard a general talk like that. He had made a deep impression."

The casualty bill for New Guinea: Japanese dead are 1,000 dead and 1,500 wounded. Australian: 314 dead and 367 wounded. Every time the Australians overrun a Japanese position, they find little evidence of food. The official Japanese ration is half a pint of rice a day...if it can be supplied. Otherwise the Japanese depend on local gardens and the vain hope of capturing Allied supply dumps.

The Japanese attack Imita Ridge and run smack into strong defenses, and two 25-lb. field artillery hauled in pieces by hand up the Kokoda Trail.

The defenses consist of Australia's first team: 16 brigade's 1/1st, 2/2nd, and 2/3rd Battalions, who first entered the lists at Bardia in 1940. They have since fought Italians, Germans, and Vichy French. They prove superior in technology and tactics to the Japanese.

As the smoke clears over Edson's Ridge, a lull descends on Guadalcanal. Vandegrift's men take a breather and stock. Most have neither underwear nor socks, and have not changed clothing in months. Marines dig little shacks or lean-tos with old crates, rice bags, palm fronds, and tree trunks.

Work is endless...maintaining weapons and aircraft, building, repairing, camouflaging, sentry duty, patrolling. The Japanese launch daily air strikes, hitting the place between 11:30 and 2 p.m. Most people are so used to the bombing routine that an air strike (and the American fighter interception) is no longer a summons to shelter but an opportunity for people to stand around watching air battles.

The airmen have a hard time. One pilot says that a week on Guadalcanal is like two months on a carrier.

To relieve tension, the first mail arrives, and Seabee scientists conduct fermentation experiments with local products. They also turn a Japanese safe into a bread oven.

All ranks gather around radios taken from wrecked planes to monitor broadcasts from San Francisco, and swap rumors. Some Marines create phony Japanese flags or trinkets to sell to careless visitors, preferably the Navy, which the Marines universally dislike.

Other Marines use a Japanese metal-pressing machine to stamp out the "George Medal," which satirizes the Navy's penchant for retreating and leaving the Marines on their own. Its logo is "Faciat Georgius -- Let George Do It," and shows a Sailor dropping a hot potato into a Marine's hand.

But many Marines are exhausted, staring vacantly, not listening when spoken to, victims of battle fatigue.

And many Marines are past exhaustion, still lying strewn about groves and jungles. A Marine officer tells the official historian not to explicitly describe the gruesome task of burying the dead. That request is honored, as graves registration teams finally recover the decaying bodies of their buddies.

By December 8,580 Marines are sick with malaria. Many more don't go to sick call. Marines refuse to take atabrine, fearing rumors that it not only permanently yellows the skin, but threatens the users' sexual potency.

The Japanese are suffering, too. They call the place "Starvation Island." Rations are cut to one-third of normal. What rice is passed out is mouldy. Supplies don't move easily from the Kamimbo terminus of the Tokyo Express -- the panniers are hauled by foot -- and the supply columns are attacked by P-400s.