October 28th, 1942. The Norwegian fishing boat Arthur makes landfall at noon, spotting the small town of Bud, south of Kristiansund. 20 miles from the coast, Arthur's engine breaks down, and the ship proceeds under sail for three hours while Larsen and his crew make repairs. The sea drops to millpond flatness, and Arthur sails on. One of her Sailors, Malcolm Causer, an Englishman born and raised in Brazil, marvels at his first view of snow.

On Guadalcanal, Lt. Minegishi continues his retreat. "We had to search again for the Regimental Colors. The taste of even temporary defeat is bitter. Perhaps it is well for a soldier to sample such a thing once in a lifetime, but it's still very, very distasteful. We must win at any cost in this fight."

In Cracow, Poland, the SS deport 6,000 Jews to Belzec for extermination. To save train space, they kill 300 children on the spot. The SS also sends a directive to its concentration camps, ordering all children's mittens and stockings accumulated in the camps to be sent to SS families.

Eisenhower has plenty of headaches to deal with today. The French Army seems supportive to the invasion of North Africa. The Navy remains a question mark. No one knows what to do about Darlan, Giraud, and De Gaulle. The Americans also fear Spanish intervention on Hitler's side.

Meanwhile, German U-boats and aircraft pick up signs of the incoming Torch invasion. A U-boat spots the battleship HMS Rodney heading south from Scapa Flow. Another carrier force is seen off Gibraltar.

At Algeciras, Viennese Lt. Karl Redl, a World War I Austro-Hungarian Navy veteran, occupies the Villa San Luis, a private house with a superb view across to Gibraltar Harbor. Redl has held the job of spying on Gibraltar since October 1. He speaks several languages, but not Spanish. A three-week dalliance with the niece of boxer Primo Carnera has helped him.

Now, with two noncoms and some Zeiss telescopes, Redl watches the ancient carrier HMS Furious, a converted World War I battlecruiser, lumber into the Mediterranean with a destroyer escort. Redl's radiomen encipher a message in the Abwehr hand cipher, and radiotelegraph it to a station in Dax, on the French side of the Pyrenees, who forward the message to Berlin.

General consternation results at the Fuhrer's headquarters in Vinnitsa, but nobody is sure what the British are up to. Hitler's workload - Alamein, Stalingrad, the Final Solution - is extremely heavy. The top brass surmise that the Allies are either seeking to relieve Malta, or invade Sardinia, or make a major invasion behind Rommel's lines in Libya. No consideration of French North Africa.

Yugoslavia, divided by the Germans and occupied by German, Italian, Bulgarian, and puppet forces, continues as the scene of bloody guerrilla warfare. An entire German Army Group under Luftwaffe General Alexander Lohr is assigned to hunt down partisans, secure bauxite mines, train Ustaschi Croatian puppet forces (noted for their cruelty) and guard the trunk railway to Greece. They are failing in all areas - partisans are still in the field, attacking mines and railways, and Ustaschi forces are proving useless against armed enemies. Nonetheless, Lohr today issues an order to treat all captured partisans with "the most brutal hardness."

German attacks continue in Stalingrad, losing their ferocity as the Germans lose troops. More and more German troops are falling out and dying from dysentery, typhus, and paratyphus. Jaundice cases are sent home, so German troops hope to get it. The youngest soldiers, aged 17 to 22, are 55 percent of those dead due to sickness.

On the German right and left flanks, Rumanian troops defend against Russian forces. Senior Lt. Aleksandr Nevsky leads a company of sub-machine gunners through the Rumanian line, and raids the headquarters of 1st Rumanian Infantry Division, causing chaos. Nevsky is wounded twice in the action. The Stalingrad Front political department decides that Nevsky must be related to the great Russian hero, and follow the new Party line of invoking Russian history. Nevsky, the "fearless commander, the full inheritor of his ancestor's glory," is awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Early in the morning, Montgomery summons his two northern corps commanders to his Tac HQ to discuss the situation. Rommel is fighting hard. Montgomery says, "It is clear that we now have the whole of the Panzer Army opposite the Northern funnel and that we shall never get the armored divisions out that way. I have therefore decided to make this a defensive front, to be taken over by 30 Corps. 1 Armoured Division and 24th Armoured Brigade to be withdrawn into reserve." The Australians will continue their attack northward, to annihilate any enemy units that can be drawn in, heavily supported by RAF and South African bomber squadrons.

Then, at the right time, Monty will cut loose 30 Corps infantry northwest to Sidi Abd el Rahman while armored car regiments drive southwest to circle around and cut off Rommel's communication and supply routes. Only then will the armor be cut loose.

To win this battle, Montgomery needs tough fighters to back up the 9th Australian Division, which is heavily engaged.

At noon, Montgomery lunches with one of his toughest fighters, Maj. Gen. Bernard Freyberg, whose 2nd New Zealand Division's 6th Brigade is taking a breather after its exertions.

Monty decides to use 2 NZ Division as the additional punch. Because of its immense casualties, Monty reinforces Freyberg with the 151st Brigade (all battalions of the Durham Light Infantry) from 50th Northumbrian Division, then the 152nd Brigade from the 51st Highland Division, then the 131st Infantry Brigade of the 44th Home Counties Division (all battalions of the Queen's Regiment), then the Greek Brigade. The offensive will be covered by Brig. John Currie's 9th Armoured Brigade. Freyberg accepts these orders, and heads back to 30 Corps HQ to work out the attack.

Meanwhile the Alamein battle rages on. RAF and South African bombers continue to stall German counterattacks before they can properly start. New Zealand artillerymen move into the Australian sector. British and German tanks shoot it out amid sand and smoke.

On the opposite side of the fence, Rommel's weary men endure a heavy artillery barrage at Hill 28. Clearly the 9th Australians are going to attack at some point. Rommel deduces that the British will maintain their pressure in the north, and concentrates nearly all his mobile forces (except the Italian Ariete Armored Division) there. He expects another night attack. Rommel is greatly impressed by the British use of infantry by night, particularly Australian infantry.

Despite the noise, confusion, and immediacy of battle, Nazi paperwork grinds on, even at Alamein. During the day, Rommel receives the "Kommando Befehl" put out by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. This orders the execution of any captured enemy raiding forces. Commandos are not to be accorded the usual POW status under international law. They are to be summarily executed. Rommel is stunned. He burns the order in front of his 1A.

After that, Rommel sends off a hypocritical but tough Order of the Day to his troops - all orders will be obeyed without question. Any soldier who does not will be court-martialed regardless of rank.

In Italy, the Regia Marina musters every auxiliary cruiser, destroyer, and transport it can find, to push ammunition and fuel across the Mediterranean. The convoys sail across, coming under attack from Malta-based submarines and Beaufighter torpedo planes, reaching Benghazi after suffering considerable damage. The convoys unload in Benghazi's poor harbor 600 miles behind Rommel's front. One tanker, the Louisiano, never makes it - sunk by torpedo with 2,000 tons of petrol.

That evening, Rommel moves the 90th Light Division into position on the British northern flank. All German units except the Ramcke Parachute Brigade are now in the north.

At 9 p.m., British and Australian guns open up on the German 164th Division's 125th Regiment. "The weight of this attack was something quite exceptional," Rommel writes. "However, by concentrating every gun in the area, we managed to break up the British attacks."

2nd/15th Australian Battalion drives north for some 3,000 yards through minefields and takes 130 POWs, losing their own colonel. The 2nd/13th Australians drives north, battling mines and mortar bombardment. A group of 10 men seize a mortar post, and turn the captured machine guns on the enemy. The 2nd/23rd Battalion, riding Valentines of 46th Royal Tank Regiment, rumble forward. The tanks hit mines and lose their treads, trapping Australian infantry and British tankers amid the battle, causing heavy casualties.

The Australians, however, continue to drive north to the coastal railway, capturing six German guns and 160 men, before being forced back.

At his HQ, Rommel watches the action. "We could see the flash of bursting shells in the darkness and hear the rolling thunder of battle. Again and again British bomber formations flew up and tipped their death-dealing loads on my troops, or bathed the country in the brilliant light of parachute flares. No one can ever measure the burden of anxiety that weighed upon us at this time. That night I scarcely slept at all, walking up and down, wondering how the battle would go and what decisions I should take. It seemed to me doubtful whether we could continue for any length of time to resist attacks of the violence which we were now experiencing and which I knew the British could intensify still further. I was quite convinced that I should not await the decisive breakthrough but should anticipate withdrawing westwards. In case of retreat we must do as best to extricate as many tanks and guns as possible and move them with us. In no circumstances must we await the complete destruction of the Alamein front."

Rommel studies his reports, and knows that he lacks the transport and fuel to withdraw his Italian troops on wheels, and is depressed that many will be left behind to become POWs.