154 - Guadalcanal - Allies Take the Initiative - WW2 - August 7, 1942

Are they really supposed to have what here?

Camels?

I don’t know, didn’t you read up on it first?

What?

I should ask Rommel?

He’s never been in that part of the world.

August 7, 1942

In the Far East and South Pacific, it is the Japanese that have been making offensives

again and again all year long, but this week finally begins al Allied invasion, this week begins...

Guadalcanal!

I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.

Last week the Allies continued their preparations for their impending campaign against the Southern

Solomon Islands, even as the Japanese advanced along the Kokoda Trail in New Guinea.

In North Africa, Erwin Rommel tried and failed to defeat the Allies at El Alamein, and over

in the Soviet Union, the 4th Panzer Army was diverted to the Northeast to help the 6th

army, which had stalled in its drive toward Stalingrad.

Wilhelm List’s Army Group A, however, blasted off Operation Edelweiss and headed down into

the Caucasus.

At the very end of the week, Salsk fell, and with that, Semyon Budyonny’s Soviet North

Caucasus Front was broken and in full retreat.

Last week, Budyonny was ordered to combine the Southern and North Caucasian Fronts into

one command- still called the North Caucasian Front, but to split his forces into two, a

Don Group under Rodion Malinovsky, which is the 51st, 37th, and 12th armies, and a Coastal

Group under Yakov Cherevichenko, the 18th, 56th, and 47th armies, and the first rifle

and 17th cavalry corps, the former to guard Voroshilovsk and the latter Krasnodar.

Further South is Ivan Tyulenev’s Trans-Caucasian Front, covering things down to the Turkish

border and even the Iranian-Turkish border.

Army Group A is advancing in five Corps sized groups.

There are Soviet counterattacks, notably one supported by armored trains which is stopped

by the Luftwaffe, but the progress is pretty rapid, advancing on Voroshilovsk and Kropotkin,

and both Red Army groups are pulled back to the Kuban, from which the Soviets are evacuating

food and supplies, while all the industrial equipment at Maikop, Krasnodar, and Armavir

is loaded on trucks and driven away.

Voroshilovsk falls to the panzer spearheads the 3rd, Tikhoretsk falls to the infantry

the 4th.

The 1st Panzer Army swings southwest to try to cut off Soviet retreat, attacking toward

Armavir and Maikop.

The Axis force the Kuban on the 5th and 6th, and take Armavir.

This gives them a small refinery, though one that’s on fire, and an airfield, which Luftwaffe