162 - This is Russia, The Soviet Thermopylae - WW2 - October 2, 1942

by Panzer
so they sank how many?
And you built how many?
Are you sure?
Is this the first time?
It is?
Wow, well that’s good news, that's great news, keep it up.
All right, see you
October 2, 1942
Your enemy is in his headquarters right next to the river.
You’ve tried to bomb him out, but to no avail, and he keeps using the river to reinforce.
What do you do?
Try to set his headquarters on fire?
No, set the river on fire!
I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.
Last week Axis attacks in the Caucasus met with little success, though the German attacks
in Stalingrad, now measured in meters and not kilometers, continued driving back the
Soviet 62nd army, and then turned to focus on the northern suburbs and the factory district,
and Franz Halder was replaced as German Army Chief of Staff by Kurt Zeitzler.
And on the 25th, the Maritime Commission in Washington DC announced that 488 American
cargo ships had been built in a year.
For the month of September for the Battle of the Atlantic, total Allied shipping losses
are 114 ships for 567,300 tons.
U Boats sink 98 of them for 485,400 tons.
But for the Allies in September 1942, tonnage built- for the first time during the U-Boat
war- is greater than tonnage lost.
If this keeps up, then the shipping crisis, which has been the main hurdle to Allied strategic
planning, will ease and ease considerably.
For example, at the moment, the US Joint Chiefs won’t spare a single ship for anything that
might weaken Operation Torch, the invasion of Vichy French Northwest Africa planned to
kick off in a few weeks’ time, but with more shipping available, more fronts might
be supplied simultaneously.
In September for the Mediterranean, one third of supply ships sent to Erwin Rommel’s Axis
forces in North Africa are sunk by the Allies.
On top of that, a lot of supplies and vehicles that do arrive are sent to inactive Italian
units in Libya.
On top of that, Italy only has a third of its merchant fleet from two years ago, the
rest has been sunk or captured.
On October 1st, the Japanese ship Lisbon Maru is torpedoed and begins sinking.
1,816 British POWs are aboard en route from Hong Kong to mainland Japan.