142 - Joseph Stalin Jumps the Gun - May 16, 1942

by Panzer
So how is it going with the Japanese?
"It ain't the Japanese, it's the malarial mosquitos"?
What do you mean?
Like "it ain't the heat, it's the humidity"?
Man, somebody's fighting in the jungle way too long.
Yeah.
Yeah, you.
May 16, 1942
Germany has not launched a large offensive on the Eastern Front since 1941, but they
had plans to in the south next week, but you know what happens this week?
This week the Soviets jump the gun.
I'm Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.
The big news last week was the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first engagement in history
between enemy aircraft carriers.
Japan lost a light carrier and the US a carrier over the course of the battle, and each side
had another that took damage, but while this was maybe a tactical victory for the Japanese,
it was a strategic one for the Allies because the Japanese were forced to call off or postpone
their offensive to take Port Moresby.
Japanese high command wasn't going to sit around and gather dust, though, because they
issued the order to attack Midway and the Aleutian Islands in early June.
The British attacked the Vichy French on Madagascar, taking the main port, and the Americans finally
surrendered to the Japanese on the Philippines.
The Germans began an offensive in the Crimea, and two Allied retreats were in progress from
Burma to India.
Bill Slim, Burma Corps commander, has spent the last five days bringing his troops and
the refugees across the Chindwin River while the Nepalese Gurkhas fought off the Japanese vanguard.
"On May 10, when the enemy broke through, the final shots were exchanged as the Gurkhas
withdrew into the jungle along the Kalewa River gorge.
Escape now carried the exhausted army on a 90 mile trek up the steamy Kabaw Valley as
the first monsoon rains began.
The ground turned into mud and the malarial mosquitos became a plague to the quinine-starved
soldiers in what they named the "Valley of Death".
Today on the 16th, they finally begin arriving in Tamu, in the Assam province of India.
This is the longest retreat in British military history- over 1,500 km, and over 12,000 soldiers
reach India.
Another 13,000 soldiers- Burmese, British, Indian, Nepalese- lost their lives fighting
off the enemy during the retreat.
As for refugees, the numbers are unclear, but of perhaps 400,000 total- mainly Indian,
as many as a quarter of them die en route.