110 - A Huge New German Offensive Begins - Operation Typhoon! - WW2 - October 3, 1941

by Panzer
Calm down, Edouard, calm down.
Say it again… they sprouted legs?
Factories don’t sprout legs.
What?
Call it what you like but they’re long gone?
How many of them?
No, I’ve never heard that before either.
Germany has taken the Soviet Union’s third largest city and has its second largest surrounded,
and this week begins the drive for the largest- Moscow.
This week begins Operation Typhoon.
I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.
Last week, the resistance in Yugoslavia formed the Republic of Uzice, the first region of
German-occupied territory to be liberated.
The Germans were mopping up Ukraine after taking Kiev, but began pulling troops away
in the north and the south for the coming driven Moscow.
The Japanese began to surround Changsha last week, and this week they enter the city.
They first send in the plainclothes Hayabuchi detachment, but these guys are just slaughtered.
That’s also the fate of the regular troops that breach the city the next day.
Continuous rain has prevented the Japanese from bringing in heavy artillery and tanks
to the battle for the city, and so by the 30th, they are forced to retire, taking heavy
casualties as they do so back toward the Xinqiang River.
In fact, by a couple days from now, the Chinese will have pushed them back as far as Yueyuang,
the Japanese starting point, and the Japanese will have taken 41,000 casualties.
It looks like we’re going to see a great many more casualties than that in the near
future in the Soviet Union, for on October 2nd, Operation Typhoon begins.
This is the German drive toward Moscow.
Adolf Hitler announces this day, “Today begins the last great decisive battle of the
year…
At last we have created the prerequisites for the final, tremendous blow which, before
the onset of winter, will lead to the destruction of the enemy.”
Actually, the night before, he issues a proclamation to be read to the troops that, “in barely
three months… you have taken over 2,400,000 prisoners, you have destroyed or captured
17,500 tanks and over 21,000 guns, you have downed or destroyed on the ground 14,200 planes.
The world has never seen anything like this!”
Which may well be true, but, you know, they still haven’t won.
Dr. Heinrich Haape, who’s been with the spearheads of the operation since June 22nd,
writes that in spite of such staggering losses, “East of the Mezha, the Russians prepared
a strong system of trenches, bunkers, tank-traps, and barbed wire entanglements….
Brought up supplies and gathered their strength to stand against us once more.