October 30th, 1942.At 6:09 a.m., USS Washington arrives at Dumbea Bay, Noumea, and a pilot boat leads the battleship in.

Later in the day, Task Forces 16 and 17 sail in, with the carrier USS Enterprise leading. She and her escorts show heavy battle damage. Her aircraft fly to Noumea. USS South Dakota is banged up from bombs and the collision with USS Mahan. Once again, USS Washington is the only heavy force the US Navy has in the South Pacific.

Washington's air control officer, Scotty Campbell, is sent to South Dakota, to find out how the sister ship has bagged so many enemy planes. South Dakota is claiming more than 30 kills. Campbell asks Annapolis classmate Pete Pavlic how this can be. South Dakota is counting duplicate claims, Pavlic admits. The actual total is between seven and 14.

In Norway, the crew of the Arthur winch their two Chariots over the side, and fix them to the ship's keel, seven feet below the surface. The Chariots are kept horizontal by a rope from their sterns.

Just as they finish, an old and bearded man appears in a rowboat. The Britons hide.

"What kind of people are you who have tied up here?" he asks the Norwegians.
"Fishermen with engine trouble," says Larsen.
"I suppose those are your nets," the old man says, eyeing the Chariots' covers.
"Yes, of course."
"Where do you come from? What sort of fishing?"
"Dog-fish."
The old man rows up to the nets and pulls them, revealing steel wire hawses.
"What sort of a device is this?"
"They are something we use to explode mines with," Larsen answers.
"You fellows go about for the Germans perhaps?"
"Yes, we do that."
"You must have had some experiences. Perhaps the Germans are on board?"
"Yes, they are below, asleep."
"Ah," says the old man. "We're very short of fats, you know. You wouldn't have a little German butter, would you?"
Larsen sends one of his men, Palmer Bjornoy, down to get some, and asks the old man, "How do you live?"
"From fishing, but it's no living. There aren't many fish, and I'm poor."
"You live here?"
"Yes, a hut, I live alone. Luckily my daughter and her husband live quite near, and I see them sometimes."
Bjornoy returns with a huge slab of British butter. The old man is amazed. "Can I really have all that?" he asks.
"Yes, take it," Larsen says. He winches up his voice. "Right, that's enough chat. Just take care. If you tell a soul what you have seen this morning you will not have many hours left to live, neither you nor your daughter. You have blabbed all your whereabouts to us, and we shall certainly find you if you blab anything to anyone else. Remember that, and now clear off as fast as you can."
The old man gets the point. "I won't say anything, ever," and he rows away.
Larsen watches the old man go, and turns to the Britons below, "Right, you Germans, you can come out."

Brewster hears the story, and chuckles. "You handled that one well. Now we have to get rid of anything British we still have left, like cigarette packets, or tins of Navy Cut. All of it overboard." To set an example, Brewster hurls his pipe overboard. The wireless transmitter goes over the side, too.

At 2 p.m., Larsen gets underway again, passing Edoy, Smola, and German binoculars at both towns. He eyes merchant ships with German flags, Norwegian houses painted in red and blue, their flagstaffs empty in silent mourning.

Arthur plods on, but late in the day, her piston breaks down. The boat must make for Hestvik, a fishing village on the eastern point of Histra. The village shopkeeper there can be trusted. At 11 p.m., Arthur anchors at Hestvik, 50 miles from Tirpitz, the Chariots left hanging down from at full scope of their towing wires.

Larsen leaves his crew to dissect the engine, and hops ashore, walking up the road. Despite the war, the village is holding a fair. Larsen asks a group of Norwegians, "Which way to Nils Strom's shop?"

"I'll take you there," says a Norwegian, "although it's late. Nils Strom happens to be my father. It's not the first time sailors have asked him for help. Just follow me."

Larsen finds Strom awake because of the fair, but ready to supply Larsen with what little food he has on sale. Larsen has a password question for Strom, to ensure his reliability, "Do you need any peat?"

Strom is to answer no. Instead, Strom says, `Yes, we're short of everything, we could certainly do with some. In fact, I'll take all you've got."

Larsen, puzzled, repeats his question, saying his peat comes from Odd Sorli in Trondheim. Sorli is the key Resistance figure in Trondheim. This time Strom gets the message. "Oh, of course, how stupid of me." Strom extends his hand. "You're the man Odd told me was coming from England."

Both burst out laughing, and Larsen explains his problem with the engine. Strom and his son head over to Arthur, and find the piston is cracked. Strom, his son, and Bjornoy, hike over to the blacksmith's house, and waken him with a well-aimed sTone at the window. The blacksmith obligingly lets Bjornoy use his forge and bellows to repair the piston. Larsen compares his ship's papers with those of a similar boat Strom owns, to ensure he will pass inspection.

Unknown to Larsen, other Norwegian underground fighters are hard at work, with varying degrees of success. For example, this day, the Nazis shoot a 20-year-old Norwegian seaman engaged in an act of sabotage, and wound him in the legs. They then murder the wounded man. In Trondheim, near Arthur, the Nazis shoot 10 prominent Norwegians as "aTonement for sabotage."

American newspapers report that Eisenhower is being recalled to Washington for consultations. Ike tells his public relations staff to give "no comment" on the report.

As the war rolls on, so do deportations from Belgium. Today the SS ship 822 Belgian Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz and Treblinka.

The Nazis also deport 100 Jewish orphans from their children's home in Brussels to a camp at Malines. The Secretary of the Belgian Ministry of Justice, L.C. Platteau (who like most Belgian officials has stayed at his post, following the example of King Leopold III), protests this move. The children's home staff refuses to leave the children and go with them to Malines. The Belgian protest is successful. The Nazis let the children and staff go back to the home.

Why the Nazis should depart from their practice of murdering Jews may seem a mystery, but a key to the answer lies in the German occupation policy towards Western Europe. The Nazis regard the Belgians, Dutch, and French as potential allies in the "crusade against Bolshevism." Belgian Rexist Leader Leon Degrelle, for example, holds high rank in the SS, and has mobilized Belgian Nazi sympathizers to form police, construction, and infantry units for the Germans. Consequently, the Nazis are eager to avoid problems in occupied Western nations.

However, in the East - Poland and Russia, particularly, Nazi philosophy and rhetoric calls for the destruction of national cultures and populations, and the use of the survivors as slave labor. The Nazis have fewer qualms about committing atrocities there.

Lt. Minegishi, still retreating on Guadalcanal, writes, "I am surprised by how food captures the mind to the degree that one is always thinking of it, I try to think of other things but can't."

Miyazaki and Ohmae reach 17th Army Headquarters in the jungle, and join the conference. While the officers palaver, Col. Tsuji, suffering from malaria, and exhausted from his two-day hike, stumbles into the meeting. He describes the 2nd Division's defeat. Miyazaki is horrified by the nature of the disaster, and realizes that sending more troops to Guadalcanal will only put a strain on a wrecked supply system.

He postpones the 38th Division's move, and addresses the supply situation. 17th Army needs 200 tons of provisions per day to supply its 30,000 men. That's five destroyer loads per night, or 150 per month. The actual rate is 60 a month.

Now the Army and Navy have another argument over the situation. The Army wants more convoys, each of a few ships. The Navy says that would require suppression of the American air force on Guadalcanal. The best the Japanese can do is shut Guadalcanal down for two days. After that, superior American engineering ability re-opens Henderson Field's runway and repairs damaged planes.

The Navy suggests sending down one large convoy, backed by heavy naval and air support.

British Convoy SL 125 heads home from Freetown with 37 cargo ships, and runs into a U-boat wolfpack northeast of Madeira, opening a seven day battle with 10 U-boats. The Germans eagerly tear into the convoy, sinking the President Doumer with 174 seamen drowned. As the Germans pour their undersea resources into the SL 125 battle, they ignore the massive Allied convoys bearing down on French North Africa.

Those convoys, in fact, are now at sea. 600 vessels carrying an assault force of 90,000 men (with 200,000 follow-up) are bearing down on French North Africa. The convoys have sailed 1,500 miles from Britain and 3,000 from the United States. The only Allied airbase in the area is Gibraltar, which is still 500 miles from Algiers. The small strip there is overcrowded with P-38s and Spitfires (in American and British service) - 350 aircraft all told. All these aircraft and ships in Gibraltar's harbor are visible and continuously studied by German Navy Lt. Hans Redl in Algeciras.

This first Anglo-American invasion of World War II is very much a patchwork affair. There are 370 merchant ships and about 300 warships. Many of the latter have been yanked from the Royal Navy's Home Fleet, which has reduced convoy escorts in the Atlantic and suspended convoys to Russia. Allied shipping programs around the world have been disrupted by the call-up of tugs, trawlers, tankers, transports, and store ships.

American troops headed for North Africa have rehearsed in Chesapeake Bay or Scotland. The Army Air Force has not been able to spare aircraft or men to train with the ground troops in ground-air cooperation. The training has been rushed. The 39th Infantry Regiment, for example, has sailed from America with 60 days supplies and 10 units of fire for all weapons. Its vehicles have to be landed for waterproofing and re-stowing in tactical order on arrival in Scotland - with only two weeks before leaving for war.

The British forces earmarked for Torch are equally green, having spent most of the war in home defense. Their exercises in August have shown that more training - for which there is no time - is needed.

So far, Britain's two invasions of the war are Madagascar and Dieppe. The first was against a weak French force, distant from its homeland, under complete air and sea superiority. The French are still holding out. Dieppe has been a ghastly failure.

The British techniques and equipment are a fairly proven force, hardened by repeated defeats. Nonetheless, their tactics and weaponry - the Lee-Enfield rifle and Bren gun - are capable and tried. The American tactics are poor - textbooks say that troops are to move through valleys and make hilltops the flanks - and their weaponry - M-1 rifles and M-3 Stuart tanks - untried.

The French defenders, however, are a known factor. There are 55,000 of them in Morocco, 50,000 in Algeria, 15,000 in Tunisia. Most are native infantry units with French officers, leavened with Foreign Legion regiments, Chasseurs d'Afrique, and colorful Zouaves. These forces, left out of the 1940 defeat, are veteran troops, at home in North Africa, experienced at desert war. Veteran outfits like the Foreign Legion are the stuff of legends. Even so, their rifles and equipment are obsolescent. They will have to rely on discipline to make up for technical deficiencies.

They are backed up by 12 units of motorized field artillery, and about 270 tanks in Morocco and Algeria, mostly Hotchkiss H35s and Somua S35s, armed with 37 mm guns. In 1940, these were among the best tanks in Europe. But they are outclassed by the British and American Sherman.

The French deploy about 500 planes, including a few Dewoitine 520s, which are outstanding fighters, able to take on the German Me 109. The rest are a mix of elderly MS 406s and Curtiss Hawks. Even so, they are equal to or superior to the British Sea-Hurricane and the American F4F. Until the Americans and British can seize airfields for their Spitfires and P-38s, the French will be able to seriously interfere with the Allied invasion.

The French Navy is another intangible. France's most powerful battleship, Richelieu, is at Dakar, too far away to intervene. But her sister, Jean Bart, uncompleted, has been towed to Casablanca to avoid German or British seizure. She cannot move, but her 15-inch guns are operating. The other French ships in North Africa are light cruisers and destroyers. The main fleet, led by the modern battlecruisers Strasbourg and Dunkerque, are poised to intervene, and could do so with deadly effect.

Behind the French defenses lurk the 100-lb. gorilla - German and Italian forces in Sicily and Italy. The Nazis have 298 planes in Sardinia and Sicily, and the Italians deploy 574, all 200 miles from Tunis or Bizerte. If Hitler chooses to intervene in French North Africa, he can do so quickly.

Seventy miles north of the Nile Delta, four British destroyers wage a 16-hour chase of the German U-559, finally catching her. U-559's skipper scuttles his damaged sub, but before it goes to the bottom, Lt. Tony Fasson, Able Seaman Colin Grazier, and Canteen Assistant Tommy Brown enter the submarine and unscrew its Enigma machine from its mount.

With water streaming in, Fasson and Grazier hand up the machine to Brown, along with its documents, keypads, and ciphers. Brown grabs the Enigma and hurls it into his whaleboat. Seconds later, the U-boat, with Fasson and Grazier aboard, goes to the bottom. Both receive posthumous George Crosses. Brown receives the George Medal.

In a bizarre follow-up, British authorities learn that Brown is only 16 years old, having lied about his age to join the Royal Navy. He is immediately discharged and sent home. Two years later, he is killed while trying to rescue his two sisters, who had been trapped in their slum tenement during a fire.

The U-559 seizure is critical to the Royal Navy. The soaked and priceless Enigma machine contains the keys to the major German U-boat codes Shark and Triton.

At Stalingrad, fighting dies down as both sides are exhausted. Chuikov's men still hold the Mamayev Kurgan, a few factory buildings, and a narrow strip of the Volga Bank. The Swastika flies over the rest of Stalingrad.

German quartermasters start issuing winter kit to their troops, fearing a repeat of the previous winter's horrors, which caught the Germans to thinly clad. The 1942 German winter kit includes reversible trousers and jacket, field gray, and white.

German troops also fight another fierce battle against a determined enemy - lice. "For a time being there was no point in even thinking of washing," writes a German soldier. "Today I killed my first batch of eight lice."

Russian Hiwis tell the Germans what to do - bury each article of clothing under the ground with just one corner left above the ground. The lice will move there and can be burned off.

German troops are suffering from lice and many other ailments - jaundice, dysentery, typhus, and paratyphus. 55 percent of 6th Army's deaths in the age groups 17 to 22 are caused by disease. Doctors in Berlin are puzzled that well-trained soldiers eating balanced rations, and engaged in physical activity, could be dropping so quickly.

The doctors attribute the high sickness and death rate to cumulative stress and short rations.

At El Alamein, RAF P-40s and Hurricanes continue to dominate the skies. Both aircraft are inferior technically to the German Me-109, but the Germans are outnumbered, outgunned, and short on fuel and pilots.

Montgomery spends most of the morning writing out his directive for Supercharge. Its object is to "destroy the enemy armored forces" and "bring about the disintegration of the whole enemy army."

All day long, British troops maneuver in their rear areas, while commanding officers and adjutants visit the front, planning the next moves.

On the German side, 600 tons of fuel arrives in Tobruk, enough for 24 hours of operations. Truck convoys head east along the Via Balbia - the Coast Road - and immediately come under heavy bombing, slowing their advance. Rommel orders his staff to prepare a withdrawal plan.

That evening, the battle resumes. The Australian 20th Brigade is assigned with driving north to the sea to finally eliminate the Axis salient, held by the 1st Battalion, 361st German Infantry Regiment and the 125th Regiment.

The Australians plan to send three battalions north to grab a point called Barrel Hill. From there, two battalions will turn right and cut of the German strongpoint, called Thompson's Post, while everyone else heads for the sea.

Behind them, the 24th Australian Brigade will advance, backed by the 2nd/3rd Pioneer Battalion, to cut off the pocket, hopefully sealing off the enemy. The Australians receive support from 23rd Armoured Brigade's Valentine tanks and Australian, New Zealand, and Highland Division artillery - a grand total of 312 field guns and 48 medium guns, hurling 64,000 rounds. Overhead, three squadrons of A-20s drop 85 tons of bombs into the area.

The bombardment has the desired effect. 2nd/32nd Australians covers the 2,000 yards to the railway line with little resistance. They take 175 POWs from the 1st Battalion of the 361st Regiment. 400 yards further, the Australians reach the Coast Road, and set up their 500-yard diameter position, encountering three German doctors and their orderlies, with their wounded. The doctors stay in the Australian area, and tend both sides' wounded.

As 2nd/32nd digs in, 2nd/48th and 2nd/24th move up, followed by the Pioneers. In the dark, the Australians lose track of each other, and identify themselves with profanity.