July 26th, 1942...400 miles southeast of Fiji, USS Wasp, USS Enterprise, and USS Saratoga hook up, joining the invasion force for Guadalcanal, the most powerful force the US Navy has yet assembled in the Pacific.
VADM Frank Jack Fletcher meets with the other major commanders aboard his flagship, Saratoga. Present are RADM Victor A.C. Crutchley, commanding the cruiser force, VADM Richmond Kelly Turner, commanding the amphibious force, and Maj. Gen. Archibald Vandegrift, commanding the Marines. The top boss, VADM Robert Ghormley, is represented by his chief of staff, RADM Daniel Callaghan. That move deprives Ghormley of complete information of the intentions of his subordinates in the first American amphibious assault of the war.
Fletcher presides. He is the Navy's senior carrier commander, who has led the fleet at Coral Sea and Midway. He possesses an unexcelled but mixed combat record dogged by misadventures. Senior officers (and historians forever after) are wrangling over whether Fletcher suffers from bad luck or ineptitude. Nonetheless, Fletcher has been at sea for 154 of 207 days, has had two carriers sunk under him, and is fatigued and nervous from the strain.
Fletcher starts off by saying that "Operation Watchtower," the invasion of Guadalcanal (the previous name was "Operation Shoestring") has little chance of success. He asks how long it will take Turner to unload the supplies put aboard in Wellington last week. Five days, replies Turner. Fletcher says he will withdraw his carriers and their fighter cover in two, to avoid enemy counterattacks. Turner is furious. So is Vandegrift, who says this is not a raid, but a permanent occupation by a full division. Fletcher counter-offers three days. Callaghan takes detailed notes, but does not use his authority as Ghormley's mouthpiece to keep Fletcher's carriers on spot. When Callaghan briefs Ghormley, Ghormley takes no action either.
One voice not heard from is Crutchley, a red-bearded Englishman who commands the cruiser force. A valiant officer, holding a World War I Victoria Cross, he commanded the battleship HMS Warspite at Narvik, sinking 3 German destroyers in one engagement. Now, leading a mixed force of cruisers, some who have never operated together, he neither issues battle plans nor holds exercises.
HMNZS Achilles sails from Suva in Fiji for Bora Bora, where it takes on oil and ice cream.
The British launch another attack at El Alamein, hurling 24 Australian Brigade into action just after midnight, against the Taqa Plateau. The area has just been taken over by paratroopers of the Italian Folgore Division, who were to invade Malta.
July 27th, 1942...Gen. Ernest Harmon takes tactical command of all US Army forces in the South Pacific and sets up HQ in Fiji.
Australian troops in New Guinea break through encircling Japanese to flee the enemy advance, that captures Kokoda.
At Alamein, 24 Australian Brigade attacks Miteiriya Ridge and Taqa Plateau, seizing the former by 3 a.m. 6th Durham Light Infantry and 5 East Yorks of 69th Brigade, sent to support them, are delayed by enemy mine fields. Bren carriers, trucks and men all die in mine explosions and flashes that brighten the night and reflect off the hills. By 8 a.m., 69 Brigade is on Deir el Dhib, but lacking their anti-tank guns.
The German 90th Light Division moves in with a reconnaissance battalion of armored cars and Mark II panzers, which hammer 69 Brigade amid frightful sandstorms.
British 2 Armoured Brigade goes into action and smack into mine fields, losing three Grants of 6 Royal Tank Regiment right away. 50 RTR with its Valentines, presses on, losing 13 before it reaches the 2/28th Australian positions. The tankers find the Germans in possession of the ground, and have to retreat.
Rommel's verdict: "A dashing counterattack...eventually smashed the Australian wedge, and threw the enemy back to his own lines with heavy losses."
By 10 a.m., the British call off the battle. The attack has failed, but the Germans are down to their last rounds of medium artillery ammunition. Maj. Gen. Fritz Bayerlein, Rommel's chief of staff, later tells historians that if the British had attacked once more, Panzerarmee Afrika would have to retreat, despite its lack of transport and fuel, to Libya. Luckily for the Germans, 8th Army is unable to attack, either.
The German offensive in Russia continues east as Army Group B clears the Don bend near Stalingrad. 6th Army begins the battle to reduce the Russian bridgehead across the Don at Kalach, west of Stalingrad.
July 28th, 1942..."We are all living on hope," writes Guadalcanal Coastwatcher Don McFarland to his colleague, Martin Clemens. "If nothing happens before the weekend, I intend to flit. I would suggest you do likewise. Patrols are approaching the Ridge, and I don't intend to wait here until I can't get out."
Australian troops counterattack in New Guinea, and recapture Kokoda.
In Egypt, the First Battle of El Alamein ends as firing dies down. Auchinleck can no longer attack, and the initiative passes to Rommel. The 8th Army digs in. Auchinleck orders that a mobile force of four infantry and one armored division be deployed to counterattack Rommel's next drive. All defensive positions must be within mutually supporting artillery range. Three ridges will be fortified in depth with mines and covered with artillery fire.
Auchinleck believes that by September he can mount a powerful offensive. He believes Rommel will attack from the south, trying to cut 8th Army off from behind in a hammer-and- anvil attack.
Auchinleck is right. Rommel, sick from the desert heat, is planning to do just that.
Eight federal agencies jointly recommend an eight-hour day, 48-hour work week as the best schedule. Meanwhile, Arkansas Democrats turn away all blacks from voting in the state's Democratic primary. The state party restricts membership to "qualified white electors."
Facing impending disaster, Josef Stalin takes stern measures, issuing Order No. 227, a fairly stern document. "Panicmakers and cowards must be liquidated on the spot. Not one step backward without orders from higher headquarters! Commanders, commissars, and political workers who abandon a position without an order from higher headquarters are traitors to the Fatherland, and must be handled accordingly."
Stalin orders Gen. A.A. Gordov, commanding the Stalingrad front to strengthen his southern front against the onrushing 4th Panzer Army. Then he decides to set up a new force, the Southeast Front, to hold the southern half of Gordov's line.
Behind German lines near Leningrad, Soviet partisans kill Adolf Beck, a German official of the economic administration of the occupied territories, who is responsible for shipping Russian agricultural produce to the Fatherland. The partisans kill Beck and burn his barns and granaries. Then they issue a pamphlet announcing Beck's death, which says, "Russians! Destroy the properties where the men responsible for your evil fate are hiding. Finish off the German landowners. Don't work for them, but kill every one of them -- this is the duty of every Soviet patriot. Drive the Germans from the land of the soviets!"
In the Warsaw Ghetto, 66,701 Jews have been rounded up and sent to their deaths that week. 250,000 still remain, living on sparse rations and sparser hope. More than 4,000 have died that month of hunger. That day, led by Mordechai Anielewicz, they set up a defense force, the Jewish Fighting Organization.
July 29th, 1942...The Japanese re-capture Kokoda in New Guinea, and both sides run out of energy in the verminous jungle. Among the hazards are coconuts. Five-lb. nuts periodically fall 60 feet from trees, which can kill a man. After a senior officer is hit on the shoulder, all Australian troops are ordered to wear tin helmets. On an exercise, a platoon commander reports "Am bravely carrying on despite coconut fire." Nonetheless, the coconut's juice and meat is a welcome addition to a monotonous diet of bully beef, tinned fruit, hard biscuits, and tea.
Later in the war, coconut milk is used to make an illicit liquor called "jungle-juice."
Allied aircraft attack two Japanese transports off New Guinea, and one is forced back to Rabaul without unloading. The second is disabled and sinks; its troops have to go ashore in small craft.
In Warsaw, the Nazis offer a free issue of three kilograms of bread and one of jam for each family that volunteers to go to "the East." Thousands of starving Jews volunteer. They all get jam and bread. They all board railroad freight cars. They all take a ride to Treblinka. They all are gassed.
July 30th, 1942...The U.S. Navy establishes a Women's Reserve and calls it the "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service," or WAVES. Initially it will consist of 11,000 women, including 1,000 officers. It starts off by training 900 women for commissions as ensigns at the Tony Smith College in Northampton, Mass., home of Calvin Coolidge.
The first White House wedding since 1918 unites Harry Hopkins, FDR's top aide, to Mrs. Louise Macy, a New York fashion writer.
Japanese troops seize three atolls in the Netherlands East Indies, Aru, Kei, and Tanimbar. They're stuck with them for the duration.
Auchinleck signals Churchill that he will attack in late September. Churchill is infuriated. He wants action sooner, to aid "Operation Torch" and relieve the strain on Cairo and Malta. Churchill heads for Egypt in an American B-24 Liberator bomber, which has to stop at Gibraltar and make a long flight across the Sahara.
As if Soviet military men don't have enough decorations, Stalin adds two more, both rooted in pre-Communist tradition. One is the Order of Suvorov, named after one of Catherine the Great's generals. It is for directing successful operations in the field. The second is the Order of Nevsky, for battalion, company, and platoon commanders who show personal courage and successful leadership in battle.
German Army Group A blasts across the Manych River southwest of Proleterskaya, while Army Group B pushes across the Don.
July 31st, 1942...Newly-commissioned ENS Hal Berc takes a New York taxi into Brooklyn Navy Yard, clutching his "Confidential" orders. The driver asks Berc which ship. Berc decides to practice good security. "Just drive along the piers, and I'll tell you when to stop."
"Do you know what your ship looks like?"The driver rattles off all the ships currently in the yard. When the driver says USS Washington, Berc says, "That's the one." So much for security.
"No."
"Then I'll save you some money, admiral."
Berc finds the battleship perched atop oaken blocks in drydock, near the battered light cruiser USS Marblehead (which escaped the fall of the Philippines) and the unfinished battleship Iowa.
Berc trudges up the forward gangway, salutes the junior officer of the deck, and presents himself for duty. The JOOD says, "Welcome to the Washington, ensign, but this is the enlisted men's gangway; you're to report aft on the quarterdeck." Berc goes back down and picks his way through 400 feet of cables, hawsers, air compressors, and other equipment to the quarterdeck, arriving there at noon.
Don MacFarland's deadline comes and goes, and he stays in position on Guadalcanal, choosing valor over discretion.
Meanwhile, US B-17s start bombing Guadalcanal and Tulagi to soften up the defenses.
German troops cross the Don along a 150-mile front. The Soviets continue to reel back. 4th Panzer Army breaks through 51st Army's five divisions. Stalingrad is less than 90 miles from the muzzles of 4th Panzer Army's tanks.
British civilian casualties for two months: 711 killed, 1,208 injured.
At Koro in Fiji, the Marines wrap up a frustrating rehearsal of the Guadalcanal invasion. Reef conditions make landings difficult and very hazardous to irreplaceable landing craft. The exercise is cancelled after only a third of the troops have landed. Multiple failures leave Vandegrift looking dejected, the only time in the campaign. He and Turner later console themselves with an old Broadway cliche, "a bad rehearsal foreshadows a good performance."
A Coast Guard coxswain manning a landing craft is more to the point. "It was a holy mess that just about cost me my boat."
At dusk, the force forms anti-submarine formation and sails for Guadalcanal.
19,000 Marines from a hybrid, half-trained division (using maps from 1897) and a hastily fabricated amphibious force of 80 ships (two troopships can claim the name President Jackson) led by an admiral who has arrived at the last minute are sailing to attack an army that has yet to lose a battle in this war, and a navy that has, until Midway, defeated all comers since 1598.
Armed military patrols start guarding Florida beaches and coasts, and all civilians are barred from them after dark.
J. Edgar Hoover announces that Filipino Mimo Guzman, 42, has been arrested in New York and charged with violating draft laws. Guzman has admitted to organizing the Pacific Movement of the Eastern World for "dark-skinned unity" in 1932 and to aid a future Japanese invasion of the United States.
The 25,000-ton aircraft carrier USS Essex is launched in Newport News, Va., This immense ship, the largest carrier yet built, will carry 100 aircraft. Essex is the lead ship of her class, which will include 26 carriers. Five will bear the names of earlier sisters sunk in battle. Four of them will survive to become museums.
August 1st, 1942...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.
Aboard the Guadalcanal invasion force, Marines hold Sunday services in shifts, Catholics first, Protestants second.
After church, Marines buy candy (pogy bait) from the ship's store, and return to classes on tactics and memoranda. One describes the Tenaru River as following "a serpentine course with a current averaging four knots. During the rainy season and flood the water rushes at much greater speed. The river is full of deep holes and well over a man's head..."
German troops drive on towards the Caucasus, reaching Salsk, where they cut the Novorossisk-Stalingrad rail line. Other troops reach the Kuban River.
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."
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.
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.
