174 - A Red Christmas - WW2 - December 25, 1942

- What?

The Gifu?

What does that mean... no wait, let me guess... get the funk up... no, it's not that pleasant.

Well what is the Gifu?

Oooh, I see.

The Allies have this week lost the race to Tunis, and stalemate sets in in Tunisia with

the winter rains.

American Commander Dwight Eisenhower writes the following to General Thomas Handy, "The

best way to describe our operations to date is that they have violated every principle

of war, are in conflict with all operational and logistic methods laid down in textbooks,

and will be condemned in their entirety, by all Leavenworth and war college classes for

the next 25 years."

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

Last week the big news was two new offensives, Winter Storm by the Axis to relieve the forces

surrounded in Stalingrad, and Little Saturn by the Soviets, to push back the enemy and

sabotage their offensive from the flanks, and Allied offensives were being planned to

go off this week in both Tunisia and Guadalcanal.

The Japanese are learning a lesson from Guadalcanal.

"The Guadalcanal campaign illustrates that combat power in the air cannot be measured

solely by comparing aircraft inventories.

Maintenance resources and particularly airfield location and capacity rapidly discounted the

raw numbers of aircraft each side fielded.

In recognition of these factors, the new Central Agreement accentuated the expansion of the

infrastructure of the airfields, and on this occasion vigorous action followed good intentions...

Construction troops improved existing facilities at Rabaul, Buin, and Shortland, and initiated

work on the creation of new bases closer to Guadalcanal."

The main one of these is Munda, on New Georgia, just some 260 km from Guadalcanal.

Japan has, in fact, been beefing up and refitting their air power in the Solomons lately in

preparation for new offensives.

Back on the 7th, Japanese 11th Air Fleet had exactly 100 operational planes.

That's it.

But they plan to have ready 168 zeros and 100 Bettys by the end of the month, and on

top of that, on the 18th, 110 planes from the Army's 6th Air Division arrive.

But you know, beyond the planes, there is a huge decline in the quality and skill of

replacement air crews.

Munetaka Sakamati, 11th Air Fleet Chief of Staff, says his newest influx of airmen have

only a third the skill of the men they replace.

Now, for the past few weeks, construction crews have been building the base at Munda.

They've tried to keep it secret, but that hasn't worked and since the 6th it's been