157 - Yamamoto: Midway Round Two? - World War Two - August 28, 1942

So the mountain division is where?

On the coast.

Right.

And where's the infantry?

They are in the mountains.

What about the armor?

They are in the forests?

Did you guys just like roll dice to see who gets to attack where?

Alright!

See you!

August 28, 1942

Nearly three months ago, Isoroku Yamamoto launched the Battle of Midway hoping for a

decisive victory over the American Pacific Fleet.

That did not work out as he had planned, but this week- this week Yamamoto tries again!

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

Last week, a Japanese attempt to dislodge the Americans from Guadalcanal was massacred,

though Japanese high command can't believe that possible.

An Allied raid on Dieppe, France wasn't exactly massacred, but it failed dismally, though

Allied high command does learn from it at least.

And in the Soviet Union the Axis forces have cleared the Don River of the enemy and will

soon attack to reach the suburbs of Stalingrad.

And by soon I mean this week.

The night of the 22nd, most of 16th panzer division moves to its jumping off point east

of the River Don.

This is a bridgehead like 5 km wide and maybe 2 deep.

Soviet artillery and bombers try to knock the bridge out to no avail, and at 0415 the

panzers blast off, an armored punch aiming right across the bare steppes for the Volga.

Stalingrad or bust, with heavy Luftwaffe support.

"Richthofen's 8th air corps hit Stalingrad with a massed blow, smashing in the residential

and administrative centers, setting fire to the oil storage tanks so that the destruction

was hidden in a dense pall of smoke; on the Volga, the docks burned to their timber shells…

armored vehicles and Panzer Grenadiers gunned down any opposition in their scything path.

At 2310 hours, August 23rd, 79th Panzer Grenadier Regiment radioed from the Volga that they

were located in Spartanovka, the northerly suburb of Stalingrad…

Stalingrad was passing through its own special crucifixion, the dead lying out in the streets

and German troops standing to on the Volga on 23 August."

Josef Stalin does not get a full report from Chief of Staff Aleksander Vasilevsky until

the next day because a lot of communications have been wrecked.

Then at 2100 the 24th, High Command big figures Yeremenko, Khrushchev, Chuyanov, Malyshev,